


it always leads to you in my hometown

by pineappleyogurt (musicforlife101)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, At least in appearance, Awesome Sarah Rogers, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Car Sex, Childhood Sweethearts, Exes to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Getting Back Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mention of Past Consensual Underage Sex Between Teenagers, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Minor Riley/Sam Wilson, Musician Bucky Barnes, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Semi-Explicit sexual content, Semi-Public Sex, Top Steve Rogers, inspired by 'tis the damn season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforlife101/pseuds/pineappleyogurt
Summary: Bucky doesn't want to talk about life in LA. Or the icy numbness in his chest. Or how shattered he is without Steve. Or how he doesn't know who he is anymore. Or the supposed choices he has to come home.But when Steve calls him babe out of habit, he decides to let him. At least for the weekend.It's a lesson in choices and consequences and finally figuring out what's important.--You can't unmake a choice. Decisions in life aren't like making a bed or choosing a path. You made it, it's done. You don't unmake it or remake it like a do over. You just make a different choice and live with those consequences. Each day is a choice. And the consequences, good or bad, of staying here aren't the same as the consequences of coming back. Just like the consequences of leaving aren't the same as the consequences of staying gone.__Fully written, new chapter posted every two days.Though this starts off with lots of soft, sad feels and fluff, I promise it ends very happily
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 101





	1. you can call me babe for the weekend

**Author's Note:**

> I know there are already a handful of Stucky fics inspired by Taylor Swift's 'tis the damn season (I've read them), but this song just feels like them. So here's my offering.
> 
> It's sad and teary and sweet, with hugs and healing and love and consequences and a very happy ending, I promise
> 
> This isn't the first Stucky I've written, but it's the first that's finished enough to post after lots of lurking and reading.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mention of past character heart attack, unprotected sex that is somewhat under-negotiated, and mention of suicidal ideation but no character is actually experiencing it

_Thanksgiving 2019_

Bucky is humming a little melody, tapping his fingers to an unheard beat, conducting an unseen orchestra. When he turns on the sidewalk to see a tall, broad shouldered memory walking past him.

It’s a strange thing, being able to recall the scent of someone whose favorite song you no longer know. It’s something Bucky has never been able to write into a song, an ache he knew deep in his heart that he’d caused.

He was the one scared to come out on a bigger platform than their tiny town upstate. He was the one who decided that loving music meant he needed to go try for a record deal. He was the one who left, begging Steve not to ask him to stay, knowing that he could never have asked Steve to wait. He stumbles on a crack in the concrete that’s been there half his life. And Steve catches him against his massive chest, grasping his hand so Bucky won’t drop his phone. Breath catches in his chest and he looks up into an ache he put in those eyes. The pain in his chest sharpens and he can’t breathe at all.

“Gotta be careful, ba— Buck,” Steve says softly. Bucky’s breath hitches again. It’s been years, literal years since they’ve seen each other. Five years somehow isn’t enough to keep Steve from reflexively calling him babe. And Bucky knows how hard it must be for him to stop himself.

“Sorry,” Bucky whispers.

“Y’okay?” Bucky nods. “Didn’t know you were comin’ home.”

“Tis the damn season, right?”

Steve huffs a humorless laugh to match Bucky’s humorless tone. “Sure is. I’ll, uh, let you go now, I guess. It was, uh, nice to see you.”

It isn’t, Bucky can tell. He doesn’t know if he can bring himself to pull off the same lie. He just nods. It isn’t _nice_ to see Steve Rogers. No matter that he looks more gorgeous and tragic than ever. It’s the most painful thing he can imagine happening to him. The love of his life is walking away down the street, just like Bucky did to him years ago. And it doesn’t really matter, all they have is this weekend before Bucky leaves again. But it kills him so much more than he ever could have imagined.

“Stevie?” Bucky asks, turning. Steve turns back, takes a step closer, brows drawn in worry. Bucky tries to fake a smile and Steve just frowns until he stops. Steve has always known. “I’m, I can’t…”

“Okay. I’ll take mornings at the café. I know you’re never up, so you won’t have to see me—”

“No! Not...please Stevie.” Bucky swallows over the lump in his throat. “I’m the one who’s gonna get crushed this time, we can call it even.” Steve’s hand brushes his arm and Bucky tries to unclench but can’t.

“I don’t understand.”

Bucky takes another rattling breath. “I won’t ask for more time. I won’t ask you to wait for me to be ready, and you still can’t ask me to stay. I’m going back to LA on the second.” Steve nods, still confused. “But, if you want, you can call me babe for the weekend.”

Steve freezes, then very carefully unfreezes. His hand curls around Bucky’s arm, the other pulling Bucky closer by the hand.

“That’s a lot to offer,” he says. It shouldn’t be. It should be nothing. But they both know it’s the remains of Bucky’s heart on a silver platter. “But if it’s alright with you, then I think it’s alright with me. You staying with your parents?” Bucky nods. “Let’s go get something warm, babe. We can walk around for a little while. Okay?”

Bucky nods, something deep in his chest thawing at the sound of that deep, dearly loved voice calling him babe again. He slips his phone into his pocket and his hand into Steve’s.

Steve turns them back the way he came and into the café his mother owns, which he’s been managing for her for the last two years. Peter is behind the counter, a kid they’d both been fond of, now a high school student. It’s weird, but Bucky smiles at him anyway. Peter looks puzzled at their joined hands, but makes whatever Steve asks for. Bucky isn’t listening.

Inside, he’s feeling the ice in his chest begin to thaw for the first time in years. California heat has done nothing for it. But one of Steve’s warm palms will have him fixed up in no time.

They walk with hot chocolates in their free hands for a while. It seems like half the town gives them curious looks and Bucky realizes again what a stupid thing he’s just done. But neither of them can take it back. He’s just left them in a world of pain and confusion, which will all start the second he’s outside town limits on Monday. Steve will have to live with this. But, knowing how he’s been living with it, Bucky doubts anyone will say anything.

What the fuck would they even say? ‘Hey Steve, what happened when your ex that isn’t over you came back and you got together for Thanksgiving?’ ‘Hey Steve, did you really take Bucky back for a weekend like that was fair or enough or okay?’ Yeah, they’re all gonna ignore it, but they’ll pity Steve. And Bucky’s sorry about that.

Steve pulls them to a stop at a bench in front of city hall so they can watch all the lights and decorations being put up for the official start of the Christmas season on the first. His parents begged him to stay that long. It's on a Sunday, so he didn’t fight them on it.

“How’s LA?” Steve asks once they sit. He has his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and Bucky’s leaning on his chest like he had every single day of the five years they were together.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Steve presses a soothing kiss to his temple. “How’s your Ma?” he asks instead.

Steve shifts uneasily. “She’s okay.”

“That’s not an okay tone.” A deep sigh ruffles Bucky’s hair and he sits up to pay attention to Steve’s response.

“She had a heart attack in February,” he says finally.

“Steve! What? Why didn’t—?” He recognizes how selfish that sounds, but his head is whirring a mile a minute. It’s _Ma Sarah_ ! He can’t lose her. _Steve_ can’t lose her. Why didn’t anyone tell him? Why didn’t Becca tell him? He’d have been on the next flight to help out, to take shifts at the café, anything.

“I told Becca not to bother you,” Steve says.

“It’s _Ma Sarah_ ,” Bucky insists. She’d half raised Bucky. And for most of his adolescence she was essentially his mother-in-law. “It’s never a bother,” he finishes in a hoarse whisper. “I’d have come.”

“I know, that’s why I told Becca not to say. I promised I wouldn’t ask you to stay.”

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s chest so he doesn’t have to admit he’s crying. Steve just strokes his hair and doesn’t say any more. It's easy, like it always is. They don't need words and they never really have. All the moments that stick in Bucky's heart and make him ache for Steve's arms are all ones where words weren't enough. They sit for so long in the comfortable, but aching silence that Bucky’s ass goes numb.

When Steve finally tugs him up from the bench, he complains about it. Pouty and bratty and like himself in a way he hasn't been in years. Steve outright leers at him.

“I can help you with that, babe,” he purrs into Bucky’s ear and Bucky is desperately glad his coat hits mid-thigh because he’s hard instantly. No other person on the planet arouses him like Steve. And he’d bet his life that no one ever will.

“Please,” Bucky whimpers.

“Hmm, your folks will still be out for a while,” Steve says and leads Bucky away.

Bucky’s parents live a little further from downtown than Steve and his Ma always have. But Steve gets them there in only a few minutes. And he still has a key. It hurts Bucky’s heart a little to know that he’s the only one left out, but he’s still glad that his parents keep tabs on their would-have-been son-in-law. Steve takes Bucky upstairs into his own childhood bedroom, as if Steve’s the one more at home here. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if he was. But he just goes along with it, as he usually did with Steve.

Then he’s letting Steve undress him and watching Steve undress in turn. And for the first time in five years Bucky feels Steve’s hands on his chest, his waist, picking him up and dropping him on the bed shoved into the corner. They’d lost their virginities to each other on this bed a decade ago. And now Steve’s pressing him into it with breathless kisses like they haven’t been apart as long as they were officially together. Tears spill over Bucky’s lashes but he wraps both arms around Steve’s neck to keep him from pulling away.

But Steve doesn’t. He kisses Bucky harder, grinding their shafts together in the same, exuberant fumble that Bucky is still so goddamn fond of. Steve reaches for lube in the nightstand drawer, where Bucky always kept it. There’s still a sealed bottle way in the back and Steve scrabbles around until he gets it and peels off the plastic, never letting go of Bucky.

They’re not talking, just gasping into each other’s mouths. And it’d be weird if Bucky wasn’t aware that they’re not allowed any of the things they would usually say. They used to laugh during sex, all the time, because they always made each other laugh. But they’d start with love and praise and that feels uncertain now.

“Hang on, babe, I have a condom in my wallet,” Steve says. He sits up to reach for his pants, but Bucky tries to pull him back.

“It’s okay, I haven’t—” Steve’s head swivels to stare at him. And Bucky’s terrified that Steve’s going to really see how fucking shattered Bucky is. Has been. Every day since he left. “I haven’t been with anyone in almost three years. I’m clean.”

Steve stares at him, then practically attacks him back onto the bed. “Gonna let me come in you, babe?” he growls. Bucky nods frantically, whining. He’s pretty sure he’s never, ever been this desperate before. “Good.” Steve kisses down his neck, sucking marks that will be gone by the time he lands in LA, but which he’ll be happy to hide under a scarf all weekend. Slick fingers press against his rim and Steve takes him apart with the kind of precision that comes from knowing your partner’s body better than your own. When he finally slicks himself and presses all the way in, Bucky sobs in relief.

He’s whole. His shattered pieces are reassembled. If only he could figure out how to glue them back in place in the space between breaths, while he still feels like Steve’s.

“God, babe, so fuckin’ tight,” Steve grunts. “All for me, huh?”

Bucky nods, whining desperately as tears continue to leak from his eyes. “Yours.”

“For the weekend.”

Bucky doesn’t answer except to repeat, “Yours.”

Then Steve’s fucking him like no one else ever has or ever will. He fills Bucky up just as he likes, hits his sweet spot just right, sucks a mark into his neck while trying to muffle the admission of love he can’t keep in. Bucky tries to keep from answering it, or crying harder. He’s not sure he succeeds, but he’s getting close anyway. He whines and moans and kisses the side of Steve’s face like he’ll never leave this bed. They both will, but a few minutes of pretend in one long weekend of denial isn’t worth counting.

“Stevie!” Bucky cries. “Gonna— Steve!” He comes between them and it’s like it takes his entire body. He’s floating inches off the bedspread, every muscle locked and releasing, breath stuttering and eyes rolling. And Steve kisses his slack lips before burying himself in Bucky once more and coming deep inside him.

It takes them both a few minutes to get their bearings, so they lay intertwined like they always have.

They don’t talk again until Steve comes back with a warm washcloth to clean them up.

“So, how’d they convince you to come home this year?” he asks.

“Ma said she missed me too much. And Becca threatened to get them all to fly to LA.”

“Would that be so bad?” Steve asks.

“Yep,” Bucky replies. “No one in LA knows about, well, anything really. They’re mostly misfits who left, not...not kids who had a dream but didn’t want to leave home for it.” Steve gives him a soft, sad look and Bucky shakes his head. “Don’t feel bad for me. I made my bed.”

“You can remake it,” Steve says. “I’m guessing you’ve got family stuff all day tomorrow.” Bucky nods, glad to let the LA conversation drop. “What about Friday?”

“Think Ma and Becca are going to the outlets for Black Friday. But I’m not doing anything.”

“I’ve got an early shift, but I could come over. We could take a midday nap, like we used to on Christmas break. Then, I dunno, maybe just go for a ride.”

“Yeah, please,” Bucky says. He grips Steve’s wrist and pulls him down to cover his body with the warmth Steve has pumped out ever since his first growth spurt.

Steve smiles into Bucky’s neck. “Kay, I’ll come over around 10:30. I should go now though, babe. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. Just want you,” Bucky says softly. He doesn’t beg Steve to stay, or wait, or anything. Steve does though. He hovers over Bucky’s body until Bucky can bring himself to meet his eyes. Then he smiles again and kisses Bucky like he used to every night on the front porch before going home. It makes Bucky want to cry again. And Steve’s already a little misty.

“This is a terrible idea, I hope you know,” Steve murmurs.

“Yeah, I’m full of those. Decided to leave in the first place, remember?”

“Can’t really forget it,” Steve admits. It’s the first time he’s said outright that this is killing him too. For everything else, Bucky’s been trusting that he can still read Steve like a book in a language only they know. “It’s gonna end in tears for both of us, but if you’re willing, so am I.”

“For you, always,” Bucky says. He knows it’s not enough. He knows it’s not true in the ways that would matter. But for this it is and Steve nods. He kisses Bucky one more time before he stands to get dressed.

Once he’s presentable again, he tucks Bucky in, wipes his tears and kisses him one more time. “Friday morning, naptime. I’ll meet you here, babe.”

“Kay, good night, Stevie.”

He doesn’t hear the door close downstairs. Or his parents come home. His tears soak the pillow and he doesn’t notice any change until his mother comes into his room.

“Oh, honey what’s wrong?” she asks, sitting down beside him. He’s covered from neck to toe, but he feels supremely awkward that he’s basically languishing in what’s left of his and Steve’s lovemaking (because that’s exactly what it was) while she’s sitting there.

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“You’re in bed alone crying, that’s not nothing, Bucky.”

“Thinking about bad decisions.” She humphs and he knows that’s not a good enough answer. “Have you ever committed to a choice and known that it was the wrong one just after you’ve reached the point of no return?”

“Yes,” she says. “That's pretty much how I ended up in bed with my first boyfriend.”

“Ma!”

“You asked,” she says. “But you know what I realized while I was in that bed?” Bucky shakes his head. He doesn’t particularly want to know, but if she’s going to tell him, it’s probably important. Winifred Barnes is wise in ways Bucky will never master. “I realized that there’s no real point of no return. It didn’t matter that my dress was on the floor. Who the fuck cares? I picked it up and put it back on. Just because the cost to turn around is high, doesn’t mean you can’t still do it.”

“You already knew I ran into Steve, didn’t you?”

“There are two hot chocolate cups from the café in the trash,” she says plainly. “I assumed you saw him there. And if the cups are here, he came back with you. And since you’re not wearing a shirt, I assume you were together at least somehow.”

“They shoulda made a Murder, She Wrote series starring you,” Bucky grumbles. “He’s coming to hang out with me on Friday.” Winnie hums thoughtfully and pets his hair. “No one told me Ma Sarah had a heart attack.”

His mother sighs. “I almost told you anyway and damn Steve’s wishes. He’s a good boy, but he’s never, ever gotten over you leaving. And I _don’t_ want to guilt you, Bucky, but none of us have.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, and you’re following your dream, so we can live with it. But I thought long and hard about what you’d do if I told you. Becca and I talked it over, trying to see if we could tell you without Steve finding out. And we realized you’d be on the next flight. You’d leave your things, or sell them, pack your guitar and come home in an instant. Steve would know because you’d be sitting in the visitor’s chair when he got off shift and made it to the hospital. So we respected his wishes, this time,” she says.

“She was in the hospital?” Bucky asks in a tiny voice.

“For a couple of days. We all pitched in to help out.”

Bucky nods. Of course they did. The Rogerses are like family. They practically _a_ _re_ family. It's honestly the weirdest fucking thing to be here and not have Barneses and Rogerses mixing around like ice in a drink. It's a not insubstantial reason why he never comes home. It all feels wrong.

“Is he okay?” Bucky asks. “He’s trying to act like it, but he just won’t say.”

Winnie looks down at him with something like pity in her eyes. “Sweetheart, ask yourself if you’re okay.” Bucky closes his eyes and wishes he was somewhere else, with a mother who was less insightful. “That’s your answer. He’s living with your choice, but he also has to live with the fact that it was _your_ choice. Just like you do.”

“Opposite,” Bucky mumbles.

“Exactly, the same, but opposite. He didn’t get a chance to make any difference because you made a choice that took him out of the equation. He has to live with that lack of closure. And you have to live with knowing you did that.”

“Ma, I don’t like this conversation.”

“Tough toenails, it’s five years overdue. You’re fucking miserable in Los Angeles, James Buchanan, and don’t you try to lie and tell me different.”

The fight abruptly leaves Bucky and he just nods.

“The point of no return is fake. You can come home. You can move to the city. You can give being a Portland hippie a try.”

“Hipster, and definitely not.”

Winnie shrugs. “Whatever they’re called. You can do whatever you want. But at least make a choice that would make you happy.”

Bucky sniffles pitifully, rubbing his face on a corner of blanket that unfortunately smells like Steve. He glances up at his mother, her dark hair streaked through with silver and her grey eyes that she gave him firm and strong. He misses her and everything she has always been in his life like a missing limb. He misses _Steve_ like a limb.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” he admits.

“Maybe Steve can help you figure that out,” she says. It’s not a kind sentence, but it’s probably true. “He’s always known you better than you did.” She looks out the window for a moment and Bucky thinks she might just need a moment to collect herself. After a little sigh, she looks back at him. “He saw a video of you playing about a year after you left and he came over here, upset, telling me he was worried because you were unhappy in LA. I thought he was projecting until two years ago. He saw it on your face two years before your own mother could spot it, Bucky.”

Bucky sighs. “Yeah, he does that. It’s annoyingly helpful sometimes.”

“How exactly _did_ you end up in bed with him, if I may ask?”

“Uh, I think my lungs stopped working when I saw him and I tripped and he caught me and I’m pretty sure my heart breaking all over again broke the last bit of self-preservation I possess. I told him we could be together for the weekend.”

“You’re both idiots.”

“Yeah.”

Winnie sighed in the same long-suffering manner she always had when her ‘sons’ did something stupid. Or in that annoying period when they’d been dancing around just dating already. She and Sarah had a whole synchronized sighing thing that Bucky masochistically wants to hear again.

“Are you going to at least see Sarah while you’re home?” Bucky nods earnestly. He can’t bear to leave without seeing her. “Good. Have Steve take you. See if she can knock some sense into your stubborn asses.”

“Sure, thanks Ma.” She pats the top of his head and gets up.

“Dinner’s in fifteen, get dressed and come downstairs.”

* * *

Thanksgiving Day goes off without a hitch.

Well, with the small hitch of Becca taking Bucky aside and giving him the most intense stare she possesses. Beth, their middle sister notices and joins in. Judy is, thankfully, watching football with their dad. Other than Steve, his leaving had been hardest on her, having only been 15 at the time. She’s only just started to consider forgiving him, and he hasn’t begun to forgive himself.

“Spill,” Becca says, corralling Bucky onto the back porch, Beth following with a glare that promises pain if he doesn’t do as Becca requests. He hates when they gang up on him like this.

“There’s nothing to spill.”

Becca snorts. “Uh huh, then why did Michael tell me that he saw you and Steve cuddling in front of City Hall yesterday?”

“Shit.”

“Bucky,” Beth cuts in. “You broke his heart. You can’t just come back in and break it again without the entire town breathing down your neck.”

“Does anyone in this town care that I broke my own heart in the process?” Bucky hisses. Beth shrugs. They don’t, which is fine. Bucky wouldn’t either. He doesn’t actually. The self-loathing runs deep. “I broke my...everything. And I fell and he still caught me and he still has to stop himself calling me babe, so I told him I could be his for the weekend and I think I’m more surprised he said yes than anything. He should’ve decked me.”

“I would’ve,” Beth says.

Becca looks pitying, though. She and Michael aren’t what he and Steve were, but she’s probably giving it a different kind of thought than Beth is. Beth’s trying to protect the big brother who stayed instead of the one who abandoned the family. He gets it. It kills him, but he gets it. He’d left only about two weeks after her high school graduation.

“Look, I’m glad you’re protective of Steve. God knows he needs it. But we’re adults.”

“Adults are just as stupid as teenagers,” Beth cuts in. “They’re just allowed to drink.”

“Okay, yes, but we’re adults who are choosing to do a stupid thing, even though it will hurt, because in some ways it’s worth it. And it’s dumb and self-destructive, at least on my part. I have no idea how I’m going to even breathe back in LA after this, let alone function. But it’s Steve and that’s good enough for me.”

They’re both silent for a long, long moment.

“Don’t let anyone else hear you say shit like that,” Becca says. “It sounds like I need to put you on a 72 hour hold.”

“I’m not suicidal,” Bucky says. “And I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be. I’m just a self-destructive idiot who apparently can’t figure out what that fuck I’m supposed to do with my own goddamn life.”

“We already knew that,” Beth says. Then she turns and leaves him on the porch with Becca.

Who just looks at him with infinite pity. “Don’t mind her and Judy. They’ve never let themselves get past the anger stage. It’s easier to live with than the sadness.”

“You make it sound like they’re mourning me. The stages of grief or something.”

“Well, you haven’t been home in years and we see you on skype maybe four times a year, so yeah, that’s how it is.”

“I fucked up, okay?”

“I know,” Becca says. “So do something about it. Doesn’t have to be tomorrow. Doesn’t have to be on the second when you get back to LA. Just do something and make it stick.”

“You and Ma are too much alike.”

“We’re exactly the right amount alike,” she says. “You’d be lost without us.”

“Well, I’m not without you and I’m still fucking lost,” Bucky whines.

Becca just shrugs. “You’ve been gone for five years, Buckbeak. So yeah, lost makes sense.”

She leaves him on the porch after that and he just drops to the worn planks, sitting and staring out at the yard and the house behind them. The porch was stained and sealed before the autumn, Bucky can tell. He bets Steve came over to help his dad, then feels terrible at the bitterness in his chest. He huffs out a frigid breath in the late evening chill. The air feels about as warm as his heart does. Not wanting to make everything worse (in his head and his heart and with his family), Bucky goes back inside.

He’s just in time to see Michael, Becca’s boyfriend, arrive. He greets the guy as nicely as he can. He’s not a new fixture in Becca’s life by any means, but they were long distance while Michael lived a few towns away to finish his degree. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if Michael’s planning to propose soon.

That washes over him and he realizes how strange it is. Same-sex marriage was legalized in New York when he and Steve were eighteen. And part of him had honestly expected that they’d have been married by now. That Becca wouldn’t get married until after him.

 _Don’t go borrowing trouble_ , Ma Sarah’s voice says in his head, _you don't know what'll come to pass_. He’s lost count of how many times she’s told him that. Borrowing trouble was just his nature, his anxiety. Steve is one of the few people who could cycle him out of it.

Michael doesn’t mention seeing him and Steve yesterday. Just asks how things are going, if he’s enjoying being home, if he’s tried some new place that just got put in down the road. It’s startlingly normal. So he clings to it for about ten minutes longer than he should and no one calls him out on it. Then Becca heads home with Michael for the evening and the girls go upstairs to bed. Winnie gives him a look before kissing his cheek and going upstairs herself.

“Not you too, Dad.”

George shrugs. “Just want to ask if you know what you’re doing.”

“Not a fucking clue,” Bucky says.

“Well, at least you know what you’re up against.”

“My own idiocy?”

“Exactly,” George agrees. “And use protection.”

Bucky turns violently red. The safe sex talk had been awkward enough when Ma Sarah had volunteered to give it to them together, under the assumption (at the tender age of fourteen) that they would end up dating and need the information. That she was correct was irrelevant.

“Dad,” Bucky hisses. That ship has sailed, though Bucky knows Steve would have insisted if there was even a chance they needed it. “We’re— we’ve been— since we were—” He runs out of steam. “We’re fine.” George raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment further. “Has Steve been, uh, seeing anyone?”

George’s brow lowers. “No one since you,” he says. “Not dating anyway. Not that—” He cuts himself off.

“Not that I deserve that kind of loyalty,” Bucky finishes for him, standing to leave the room. George’s hand darts out to grasp Bucky’s wrist. It’s not hard, just steady. Bucky stops and turns to look at his father, whose face says he didn’t want to say something like that to Bucky. It’s the kind of face that says Bucky hates himself a lot more than his family hates him. Small mercies.

“Not that you asked him for that. Not that he had to, Bucky. I don’t think he’s there yet, and I don’t think you are either. And at this rate, I doubt you’ll ever be. That’s all, son.”

“Okay,” Bucky says. He’s not sure how to process that. No one seems to be under any illusion this is a good idea. But it seems like every single person who knows also agrees that he and Steve are pretty much it for each other. It doesn’t do Bucky’s head any good, so he tells his dad goodnight and heads upstairs.

He doesn’t sleep well. He tosses and turns and spends more than a few minutes crying. When he finally has enough, he turns his lamp on low and pulls out a notebook to try writing for a while. There’s a few lines rattling around in his head that he doesn’t hate. They’re about Steve. As usual.

When Bucky had started writing music in middle school, he’d written about secret crushes and beautiful nights with best friends. They were all about Steve and about figuring out his sexuality, because of his feelings for Steve. They’re cringey, but not as bad for a twelve year old as they could’ve been.

In high school, when he started writing actual ballads and love songs, they were about Steve too. He’d written a whole song about how he felt and he’d planned for Steve to ask what it was about or who and he’d say ‘you’ like it was that easy. Instead, Steve had listened to his song and just smiled wider and wider. And when he finished, Steve beat him to the punch with a bright, easy, ‘I love you, Buck’.

How he’d ever thought he could leave Steve and still have songs inside him that aren’t melancholy as shit is beyond Bucky. Steve is the other half of his soul and the best part of his heart. He still writes almost entirely about Steve.

At some point he must fall asleep, because the next thing he knows Steve is climbing into bed with him in just his boxers. Big, warm arms circle his chest and Bucky puts his face right against Steve’s pec where he can hear his heart beating. 

“Everyone’s worried you’re up here moping.”

“I was, couldn’t sleep.”

Steve hums. “Coulda fooled me, the way you were snorin’.”

“I don’t snore.”

Another hum. “Nah, it’s kinda this funny breathing noise you make when you fall asleep with your head propped up. Happens every time you try writing in bed.” They’ve been apart five years and Steve still knows this. “Go back to sleep, babe.” So Bucky does. He dozes with his head on Steve’s warm chest and when he wakes up he’s so warm and perfect and happy he could cry. He might be crying. He’s done way too much fucking crying this weekend and it’s only Friday.

“M’hungry, Stevie,” Bucky whines.

“I’m sure there’s food downstairs,” Steve says. “Ma Winnie wouldn’t let us go hungry.”

Bucky huffs, nuzzling Steve’s neck. “Did you help Dad with the porch?”

Steve nods. “And I power washed the siding. Not that you can tell after the storm we got last week.”

“Thank you for helping them.”

“They’re my family too,” Steve says like it’s obvious. Which it wouldn’t be outside of their family. But they grew up like this, so it is.

“I know,” Bucky says. “ But you’re doing my job and yours, so thank you.”

Steve kisses his forehead. “You’re welcome, Buck. C’mon, clothes, food, coffee. Then we’ll go driving for the hell of it. Like old times.” Steve climbs out of bed and nudges Bucky up.

Once Bucky’s on his feet, he rests both hands against Steve’s chest to lean up and kiss him good morning. It might be the first kiss he’s initiated this weekend. Steve smiles into it, holding his waist and Bucky feels all of sixteen. Gawky and awkward and ass over teakettle in love. He chokes back the words.

They get dressed quickly, moving around each other like an old married couple in a long lived in bedroom. Which they might have been once upon a time. Bucky crosses the hall to brush his teeth and comes back to see Steve staring at the lines on his notebook. He jots a quick note and puts it down. Bucky will just look at it later.

Steve’s hands are on his waist when they come down into the kitchen. Judy glares daggers at Bucky, but relents when Steve gives her the Eyebrows of Disapproval. The only person they don’t work on is Bucky, unfortunately. But on the other hand, Bucky’s pout doesn’t work on Steve either, so they remain at an impasse.

There are two cinnamon rolls left for them and half a pot of coffee, so Bucky serves up their food while Steve doctors two mugs and brings them over to join him at the table. Judy glares again but goes back to reading something on her tablet while they start to eat. Every time she looks up from the screen to glare at Bucky, he shrinks back a little more. Until Steve turns toward her with an expression Bucky’s never seen on his face before. On Ma Sarah’s, though, he’s seen it more than a few times.

“Judith,” Steve hisses. “You remember how you get angry about people punishing the behavior they say they encourage?” She stops completely and stares at him. “That’s what you’re doing to your brother right now. You’re angry at him for leaving, but if you’re going to glare at him through every meal and pretend you hate him, exactly what incentive does he have to come home?”

“He’s hurting you,” she says.

“I’m a big boy,” Steve replies. “If I want to let him, then that’s my right. The only one intentionally inflicting pain right now is you, Judy.”

Bucky feels about two inches tall. Steve is practically parenting Bucky’s little sister because she’s been acting out over Bucky leaving. And now she’s furious at him for hurting Steve, even though Steve wants it just as badly as Bucky does. Bucky knows that she has no reference point in her own life for what he and Steve are dealing with. She can’t fully understand how much he wants to just innocently lay in bed with Steve, no matter that it’ll kill him later. All she sees is the one person who stayed getting hurt.

It doesn’t matter that his two younger sisters are at the table with them, Bucky crawls over into Steve’s lap. And Steve just lets him, wraps his arms around Bucky and tucks his chin over Bucky’s head. He’s shaking like a leaf and Steve will know in about two seconds just how shattered Bucky really is. But Steve will hold him anyway, so Bucky just clutches his shirt and falls apart.

Minutes or hours later, they’re alone at the table and Steve is murmuring into his ear.

“I’m here, Buck, I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay, babe.” Bucky sniffles loudly and probably kind of disgustingly. Steve just kisses his forehead. “What’s wrong, Buck?”

“My sisters hate me, my Ma knows I’m miserable, Becca pities me, I’m hurting you, I hate everything about myself, and I don’t even know who I am anymore. Oh, and Ma Sarah had a heart attack and I wasn’t here. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yeah, probably plenty,” Steve agrees. “C’mon, let’s take this with us. You’ll feel better if we get out of the house.”

Steve packs up their cinnamon rolls in paper towels and pours their coffee into travel mugs while Bucky lays like a lump between his side and the kitchen counter. He doesn’t know why Steve’s being so nice to him. He thinks it might be because Steve loves him and can tell that Bucky’s about two days from a complete breakdown, if that. He’d do anything for Steve if he needed it. Breakdown or not. Even if Steve stomped all over his heart, cheated on him, and then threw his love away like trash. And Steve’s a way better person than Bucky is, so a little abandonment is nothing in comparison.

“C’mon babe, let’s go for a drive,” Steve says, taking Bucky’s hand and pulling him outside.

Steve’s truck is the same as it’s always been. Maybe a little muddier in the back, and with new seat covers. But otherwise the same. He goes to buckle in on the passenger side and Steve pulls him into the middle seat on the bench, right against Steve’s side. It’s better, but he’s glad Steve forced the issue and Bucky didn’t presume it was okay. He can’t handle anymore awkwardness today.

After Steve makes it out of the neighborhood and onto the rural roads in and out of town, they go back to eating their breakfast.

“I love your sisters, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve all lost it since you left,” Steve says.

“Huh?”

“Judy is a ball of anger issues that even _I_ struggle with.” Steve had been about fifty percent rage and fifty percent love for his Ma and Bucky since he was a little kid. If he’s talking about someone’s anger issues, it’s serious. “Beth just doesn’t have a reference point to understand. She’s angry and she cyberstalks you to feel justified. And Becca just pities you for making ‘a bad choice’.” Steve doesn’t usually talk like this unless it’s been building up. He’s probably been handling Bucky’s sisters for years and never been able to vent about it. “But Becca has a nursing degree, a steady job, and a stable relationship. She has no idea what it’s like to feel trapped in a decision you’ve made. She doesn’t understand that moving home is a lot easier said than done, especially when your idea of success is all tied up in staying and making something of yourself.”

“I think you have a better understanding of why I’m still in LA than I do.”

“Well,” Steve sighs, “why do you think you’re still in LA?”

“Because I chose it. Now I have to live with it.”

Steve nods. “Yeah, you treat yourself like that, but what if Beth moved to Boston or something and hated it, wasn’t doing well, couldn’t get a better job she deserved. Would you tell her to come home?”

Bucky pauses to think. “Probably. She doesn’t deserve to be stuck somewhere she hates.”

“And neither do you. But I know you’re just punishing yourself now.”

“Steve, I’m pretty sure the only person in this town that doesn’t hate me is you, and you’re the one person who really, really should.”

“No one hates you,” Steve says. “They’re hurt, or upset, sometimes on my behalf, and they don’t know how to express it. And neither do you, but I’ve known that for most of my life.”

Bucky sighs and sips his coffee. “You know me, massive emotional idiot.”

“Only with certain stuff. You’re good at telling people you love them. That’s important too.”

They drive on for a little while, Steve eventually turning off the main road onto a dirt one that will take them on a long loop through the woods. The stereo is playing muffled Christmas carols and one of Steve’s hands is tracing patterns on his knee. Bucky’s pretty sure he could fall back asleep like this. Or get hypnotized and end up in some parallel world where he decided to stay and he and Steve are married in a tiny apartment of their own above the cafe that always smells like coffee, with a cat that hates them but hates everyone else more. He sighs softly into his coffee.

Then Steve comes to a stop.

“Two roads diverged—”

“Don’t quote Robert Frost at me while you’re supposed to be driving,” Bucky interrupts.

Steve just laughs at him. “When am I supposed to quote Frost then?” He takes the correct turn that will lead them back to town by the long loop.

“I dunno, hun, when you’re not supposed to be driving.” Bucky huffs. “The Road Not Taken isn’t even your favorite Robert Frost poem! It’s the one about the end of the world, uhh, Fire and Ice.”

“Yeah, it is,” Steve says, nodding. “Kinda feel like that one applies to us too.”

“Probably. Wish it didn’t.”

“So rewrite the ending, take the other path,” Steve says.

“You sound like my Ma.”

“Well, she’s been around, helping me a lot. Ma can’t do as much so Ma Winnie spends afternoons with her sometimes while I manage the cafe.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything for a long time. “You shoulda let me come help.” Steve sighs, but doesn’t disagree this time. They watch the trees with their almost bare branches for another few minutes, holding hands on top of Bucky’s knee like they’re not in the predicament they’re in. “You know how way leads on to way,” Bucky says eventually. “That’s the reasoning for not taking the other path.”

“That reasoning assumes you don’t immediately hate the path you’re on, or find that the entire path is paved by really sharp rocks or something. Sure, if you keep following the path it will lead on to others. It assumes if you keep going forward you won’t be back. But it never says you can’t just turn around.”

Bucky hums thoughtfully. “Lot of people think I should come home.”

“Maybe they just miss you.”

“Sure, but it seems like a lot of people who are really angry with me want me back and I don’t get it.”

“No, you never really did well when people were angry with you,” Steve says.

Bucky just stares at him. It’s true, of course. Steve has always thrived on the challenge, on being contrary, on doing something difficult out of spite. Bucky doesn’t thrive on conquering something in the face of someone else’s anger. And the people who know him best, Steve, his Ma, and Becca (and probably Ma Sarah, though he hasn’t seen her yet), haven’t encouraged him home with anger.

“Can we go see Ma Sarah later?” Bucky asks. “I miss her.”

“Course, babe,” Steve says easily, accepting Bucky’s desire to drop the subject. He probably knows that even he can’t convince Bucky of anything life changing in a day.

Bucky turns the volume up on the Christmas station and he just floats a little, leaning on Steve’s shoulder as they ride around the pretty roads just outside of town. It’s a relief to know this hasn’t changed. That some things never will.

***

Steve pulls up in front of the little house he shares with Sarah about three quarters of an hour later. They've just been cruising around since they got up and Bucky’s happy to stop for a while.

He follows Steve inside and Ma Sarah on the loveseat is the first thing he spots. A grin lights her face and she extends a hand to him.

"Bucky, honey, it's so good to see you," she says. She pulls him into a deceptively strong hug and he melts. She's so earnest about being happy to see him. He hugs her back and sniffles into her shoulder. "I've missed you, love," she says. "Sit, tell me how you are."

He sits, but says, "That's not interesting Ma Sarah. Tell me how you are."

She hums. "I suppose he finally told you my heart had a bit of a fit." Bucky nods. Steve's off in the kitchen, but Bucky can practically hear him frowning at the casual way she talks about it. "We'll I've had a word with the old girl that she's not to pull that shite again. Of course, our boy has been hovering to make the birds jealous." Bucky smiles at another of her colorful turns of phrase and leans against her shoulder. "Oh when I found out he forbid Winnie or Becca to call you and was handling the café alone, I almost called you myself."

"I wish someone would have," Bucky says. "I'm sorry I wasn’t here. I wish I was."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, love."

"Pretty sure I have plenty," Bucky says.

"Well not knowing shouldn't add to your pile then," Sarah says. God, he's missed her. "Now, what have you and Steven been up to? Anything fun?"

"Uhh," he dithers. Steve snorts from the kitchen. "We went for a drive, had a nap, hot chocolate the other day."

"That's lovely, dear," she says, meaning it.

And she's probably guessed, if Winnie didn't tell her, that they fell into bed again. But she's never cared about that. When they were barely teens, she explained that physical intimacy could be an extension of the emotional intimacy they already shared, that it was an expression of how much they loved each other. Having his first and most consistent sexual experiences as the manifestation of his love with Steve is probably why he fails hard at one night stands. He doesn’t know what sex is supposed to be like if he’s not in love with the other person.

Steve comes back then with tea for them both.

"Chamomile, Stevie?" Bucky asks, kind of incredulous. He never drinks herbal teas.

"You nerves can't handle the caffeine, babe, and don't argue with me on it."

Bucky rolls his eyes but is secretly pleased that Steve cares so much.

"Oh, our show is on, Bucky. Will you stay for a bit?" She has Murder, She Wrote highlighted on the guide and Bucky grins because he's secretly an old woman.

"Nowhere I'd rather be." Steve gives them both a smile and a kiss on the cheek before going back to the kitchen to clean up.

"I love you, sweetheart," Sarah says, taking Bucky’s hand.

"I love you too, Ma, like my own blood."

She rests against him and they watch quietly until the opening theme plays. "He needs to fuss," she says. "So we let him, right?"

Bucky nods. "Your son is a fusser." But Bucky loves him.

About halfway through the episode, Steve comes back in, hands empty and less certain. Steve’s nerves always fray more when he can't do anything to fix a problem. And it's probably only because of how unsteady he's been that he agreed to Bucky’s stupid suggestion in the first place. He’s really only a fusser when it comes to Sarah, Bucky, and Peter. And Bucky usually lets him fuss, which he can't always do over Sarah’s health.

"Is there anything you need, Ma? Anything I can do?" Steve asks.

"You could always chop some more firewood," she says. He looks ready to disagree, but she shoos him off. Once he's in the backyard, she turns fully to Bucky, ignoring the show. They've seen this episode before anyway. "So, tell me what's really been going on, love."

Tears crowd his lashes. He’s vulnerable already, but Ma Sarah has always been able to break through his defenses when no one else can. She always seems to know when he needs to talk it out but can’t handle doing so with anyone else.

"I hate LA, but I can't come home. I...I don't even know how I'd live with my sisters. Judy is so angry at me even Steve can't manage it. And I know pretending for the weekend with him is the stupidest thing I've ever done, but when I'm with him at least I feel like a person I recognize."

"Then it's not the stupidest thing you've ever done," she says. "Trust me, I've seen all your stupid things, love."

"God, I hope not."

She laughs and a little more ice gets chipped out of his chest. "If you want to come home, you can always stay here. I know it's only one small hang up, but it's one less. Steve will haunt wherever you are, so you might as well just stay here together."

Bucky hums. It'd be strange, but they'd spent enough teenage afternoons there when Sarah was working at the cafe.

"What makes you feel like you need to stay?"

"Wouldn't it be failing to leave before I make anything of myself?" Bucky muses.

"I think it's more of a failure in life to sabotage your own happiness, but it depends on what you think life's end goal is." And she has him there. She knows that he wants to be happy, to be proud of what he's achieved. But fame and money aren't his prize. He loves music for its own sake.

"I made my choice, and there are consequences to that. Even if I would probably make a different one now."

"I think it's fairly obvious from how upset Judy is that even making a new choice won’t absolve you of consequences," she says. “You’d still have a bridge to mend.”

Bucky sighs. "Everyone keeps talking about it like I can just unmake the choice and it'll all go back to the way it was."

Sarah scoffs. She's always the practical one. "You can't unmake a choice. Decisions in life aren't like making a bed or choosing a path. You made it, it's done. You don't unmake it or remake it like a do over. You just make a different choice and live with _those_ consequences. Each day is a choice. And the consequences, good or bad, of staying here aren't the same as the consequences of coming back. Just like the consequences of leaving aren't the same as the consequences of staying gone."

Bucky is quiet for a long time. He hadn’t thought about it like that.

"That's why you told us loving someone is a choice."

"That's right. The feelings often aren't," she says. "But the act of loving someone is a choice you make everyday. I choose to keep loving Joseph each day, even though he's been gone twenty-five years. Steven chooses to love you everyday. I don't think he knows how to choose otherwise. And nor do you." She pets his hair back. "Maybe that tells you something you need to know. Maybe it just means you haven't compared what happens if you continue with what happens if you stop."

Bucky takes a shuddering breath. "I think losing my sense of self is the consequence of stopping," he says. "Loving Steve is more me than music."

"I know, love. I won't pester you to make a choice, you know. But if you're truly unhappy, you should at least think it over."

"Thanks Ma Sarah." He kisses her cheek and lays his head against hers. "I love you."

"I love you too, honey."

Steve comes back in just after their show ends, dusty and sweaty and smelling of everything good and masculine that Bucky just wants to rub himself all over. After checking on them both, Steve heads upstairs to shower and Bucky watches him go.

“Go on, then,” Sarah says, smirking.

Bucky shakes his head. “Not when you’re down here knowing what we’re up to.”

She laughs again, bright and tinkling and he misses being small enough to crawl into her lap too. “Then just shower together, I know how you both like that.” She kisses his forehead. “You need each other, go on now.”

Eventually, Bucky relents and sets his teacup on the coffee table before following Steve up the stairs. He’s already in the bathroom, so Bucky just taps on the door and comes in. Steve drops his clothes in the hamper and looks at Bucky.

“Hi babe,” he says softly, just a hint of a smile.

“Can I join you?” Steve smiles wider and starts helping Bucky undress. The water is already warm when they step under it and even though Steve is the one who’s all sweaty from chopping wood, he lets Steve wash his hair first. “My big strong lumberjack,” he teases as he feels up Steve’s muscles. They’re more defined than the last time Bucky saw him, but he’s loved Steve from awkward, gangly shrimp through to towering hunk.

Steve just hums a little laugh and keeps running his fingers through Bucky’s hair. It’s longer than it used to be, just enough to tuck behind his ears. He realizes that he doesn’t really like it. He wants it short again, like it was when he was Steve’s. He’ll ask Dad to cut it for him. Once Bucky is clean, Steve finally allows Bucky to wash him, resting his hands on the swell of Bucky’s ass as the sweat and sawdust are washed away.

“Can I have you again before you leave me?” Steve asks.

“As much as you want,” Bucky says. “Not leaving ‘til Monday morning.”

Steve gathers a bit of suds on one hand and reaches down to stroke Bucky’s cock. Bucky whimpers into Steve’s neck and reaches down to return the favor. It’s not the most they’ve done in this shower, but it’s close and intimate as they breathe into each other’s mouths, lips brushing and hips gently grinding. Steve keeps an arm around Bucky’s waist to hold him close, and Bucky has his around Steve’s neck that he never wants to let go.

It’s not fast or hurried or furtive. Just a slow, slick climb toward climax. Steve gets there first, but only by a moment, going tense in Bucky’s hold as his release paints Bucky’s belly. The sound and sight of Steve coming make Bucky grind forward and come too, all over their hands and Steve’s hip.

They breathe in the steamy shower for long moments. Then Steve tips his head to brush a gentle kiss over Bucky’s lips.

“Turn around, babe, we gotta rinse off.” Bucky goes where he’s moved and they clean up again before Steve turns the shower off.

Sarah wasn’t wrong when she said they’d always loved this. He sometimes thought they liked the easy care and intimacy of showering just as much as the sex that tended to precede it.

They dry off together, and each other, exchanging soft smiles where there would once have been laughter. Bucky towels off his hair, squeezing water out of the too long strands and smelling to see what Steve had used in it. But it just smells like his shampoo. The one he’s used since he was fourteen. The one that there’s always been a spare bottle of in this shower. Bucky spins to look into the shower and find it on the shelf.

Steve catches him around the waist so he doesn’t slip, unaware of the reason for his turn.

“You fucking kept my shampoo,” Bucky accuses. What exactly he’s accusing Steve of, he doesn’t know.

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“Why the fuck would you still have it?”

Steve gives him a darkly sarcastic look. “Why do you think I kept it?”

Bucky fumbles. “Could be a lot of things,” he eventually mumbles, uncertain where his anger went. Love, laziness, hope that Bucky would come home, misery to see it there on the shelf, the indulgence of using it so he’d smell like Bucky. The possibilities flit around in his head and his anger gets even farther away.

“It’s probably all of them,” Steve says. He tugs Bucky to lean against his chest, kissing his wet hair. “Are you done being angry that I’m not over you, yet?”

“I’m not angry about that.”

“No, you have no idea what or who you’re angry with.” Bucky sighs. It’s annoying sometimes how much better Steve knows him than he knows himself.

“You gonna tell me? ‘Cause I sure as fuck don’t know why I’m so angry and why I’ve been crying all the time since I came back. I hate LA but I'm not like this there.”

Steve drags his fingers up and down Bucky’s spine, soothing. “This place is slapping you with five years of pain and regret and retribution. Theirs, mine, yours. I’d be more worried if you weren’t upset.”

“Why aren’t you angry with me?”

“Because I don’t have to be,” Steve says. “You’re angry enough at yourself for the both of us. So I have to be kind to us enough for the both of us. And I fail at being kind to myself plenty, but you never seem to fail at punishing yourself.”

“Well, at least I still know one of my personality traits: self-loathing.”

Steve sighs. “It really, really isn’t.” He presses another kiss to Bucky’s forehead. “Maybe you came back to remember who you are.”

“Well, maybe that was dumb,” Bucky counters. “I feel as lost here as ever, and it makes me realize how lost I am in LA, how numb I am. And the only place I don’t feel lost is in your arms.”

“Do you want me to pretend I feel any different? Because I don’t. Maybe that’s codependent. But I’m pretty sure I still know you. Even though you think you’re lost.”

Bucky’s breath skates over Steve’s collarbone as he sighs. “Go on then, tell me.”

“You’re Bucky Fucking Barnes,” Steve says. “You’re the kind of person who’d put a bucket on someone’s head for calling me shrimp and then spend the rest of recess calling me shortstack with the biggest, happiest grin on your face. You love your sisters so fiercely that you’d hurt yourself and never call because you think talking to you hurts them more. You call me a fusser, but you mother hen me and everyone else if you can. You’re the kind of person that believes in dreams so much you follow them. You’re the kind of person willing to get your heart broken, or break it yourself, just to feel happy for a while.”

The moisture rolling down Steve’s chest is no longer water, but Bucky’s tears.

“And you’re the kind of person who cries when you feel too much. Whether it’s happy or sad or overwhelmed or in love or just sad shelter animals on late night commercials.”

“Rude, you do too.”

Steve kisses Bucky’s hair again. “You’re the kind of person I gave my heart to a long, long time ago and I won’t ever ask for it back, no matter how many times I let you break it.”

“Why?”

“Because at least my heart can be with you.”

Bucky sniffles and nods. He gets that. He’d left his heart here with Steve. What of it that wasn’t frozen solid in his chest.

“You’re the kind of person who won’t ask me to wait for you because you don’t think it’s fair. But you’re also the kind of person worth waiting for.”

“I won’t ask, Stevie. You don’t have to—”

“Shhh,” Steve hushes. “I know. And I tried, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I wanted. So I’m okay with waiting because it doesn’t hurt as much as trying to find a love that isn’t yours.”

Bucky nods, cheek sliding over his own tears on Steve’s chest. He feels the same about that. And maybe he should take that as a sign that they aren’t finished. But it’s too hard. Right now, he barely knows who he is. He only has Steve’s certainty that he is that person, which is probably biased because Steve hasn’t mentioned that he’s also the type of person to break the heart of the man who loves him.

“You’re the kind of person who deserves love and happiness, Buck.”

“So are you, Stevie, and I don’t think I give you that.”

“You give me enough,” Steve says. “Time to get dressed now, babe.”

Bucky has to leave soon to go home for dinner, but Sarah stops him while Steve’s in the kitchen making her another cup of tea.

“Have you thought about Christmas?” she asks.

“What about it?”

“Maybe what you need isn’t a bunch of busybodies telling you that you can make choices. Maybe you just need perspective. Go back to LA, come home for Christmas. Give yourself some time to see what both options are like.”

Bucky hums. “Yeah, I could do that. And I want to see you.” She pats his cheek fondly. “I’ll call more too. And come see you again before I leave.”

“You’re a good son, honey,” she says, pulling him down to kiss his forehead.

Steve comes back in with her tea, resting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “You want me to drive you home, babe?”

“Nah, I’ll walk. Thank you, though, Stevie.” Steve smiles and he feels like for once, maybe he didn’t fuck it up.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Steve asks.

“Helping Dad at the shop in the morning. Otherwise, nothing.”

“Wanna meet me at the café at about noon?”

Bucky nods. He bends down to kiss Ma Sarah goodbye and lets Steve trail him to the front door. He knows she’s watching them, but it’s fondly. So he rests both hands on Steve’s chest and leans up to kiss him softly. Both of Steve’s arms wind around his back and he crushes Bucky to his chest for several long moments. They kiss and hug and murmur quiet goodbyes. Then Bucky is back out on the sidewalk and heading to his parents’ house. 

He pulls out his phone to take Ma Sarah’s advice. By the time he reaches home, he’s booked a flight to come back for the whole week of Christmas.

After dinner, Bucky waits to talk to his dad when the girls have gone upstairs.

“Hey Dad, can you cut my hair tomorrow?” he asks.

George looks over at him, surprised. “Sure, Bucky. Before we put up the lights at the shop?” Bucky nods. “Okay, how do you want it?”

“How I used to have it,” Bucky says with a shrug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! The next chapter will be up very soon! I hope you'll stick around and see Bucky figure out what's worthwhile in his life
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments if you have them! <3
> 
> Some random notes:  
> I am also secretly an old woman and watch a ton of Murder, She Wrote with my mom when I visit
> 
> The use of 'Ma Sarah' and 'Ma Winnie' is inspired by Feast on This by GoldBlooded, the gold standard of Thanksgiving friends to lovers fics imho
> 
> This story decided it needed to be written in present tense, which is perfectly valid except I haven't properly written in present tense in years. So if you see any weird verb tense agreement issues, feel free to point them out


	2. to leave the warmest bed I've ever known

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start to change, and Bucky finally figures out the choice he's supposed to be making

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the early attention to this somewhat angsty, out of season fic!
> 
> More cute and somewhat sad fluff ahead, featuring family, music, and love. And a wild Romanov appears.  
> There's also a theoretically plausible, but unrealistic timeline of music production. But it's a holiday miracle, so we're gonna roll with it.
> 
> Additional songs for the soundtrack of this chapter: Back to December and Christmases When You Were Mine by Taylor Swift (all her sad Christmas songs really vibe together), and Leaving on a Jet Plane orig. by John Denver, but Bucky would definitely listen to the Peter, Paul, and Mary version

The next morning, Bucky and George head to Barber Barnes earlier than George would open on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. He’d pulled out boxes of Christmas decorations before the holiday and left them in the back. But first, he’s going to cut Bucky’s hair. It doesn’t take long. The short back and sides with enough length on top for him to style is familiar from years of cutting it just the same. He cuts something similar for the under 30 crowd these days. It’s almost a subtle undercut, long enough on top to be fashionable. But to George it’s always been ‘The Bucky Cut’.

The Bucky that stares back from the mirror after is lighter, a little less haggard. He looks a lot more like the boy who celebrated every holiday in Steve’s arms than he did the night before.

“Thanks Dad,” Bucky says, pretending his throat isn’t tight with emotion.

They both ignore that tight feeling and get to work on the Christmas lights and decorations. Bucky gets up on the ladder to hang the lights on the front of the shop. He wonders if Steve did this the last few years. George isn’t so great on ladders at the best of times and Winnie has been getting on him about being too old to go up and down a ladder and endanger himself. But Steve’s tall and able-bodied. Or maybe Michael helped out, trying to be a good future son-in-law.

They hang garlands and wreaths in all the usual places and Bucky gets back up on the ladder to hang baubles from the ceiling with fishing line. The final touch is to hang sleigh bells on the back of the door. His dad will be sick of them by Christmas, but they’re festive. For the first time in years, Bucky feels a tendril of holiday spirit curling around his heart.

“You going to meet Steve?” George asks as he gets the shop set up to open.

“At noon,” Bucky says. “I can stay for a little while if you need help.”

“Can you just bring the clean tools out from the back, please?” Bucky smiles and goes to do just that.

Bucky fidgets before leaning on the counter beside his dad. “Hey Dad, is it, uh, is it okay if I come stay in my room for the week of Christmas? I got my ticket already, but I can stay with Steve and Ma Sarah if you need my room for something.”

George looks up from the appointment book. “You are always welcome to come home and stay in your room. Or at Sarah’s if that’s easier for you. We won’t kick up a fuss if it is. But we would love to have you home for Christmas.”

“Okay,” Bucky says in a tiny voice. “Do you need any more help?”

George shakes his head. “Thank you, Bucky.” He pats Bucky on the shoulder and waves him off. “Go see Steve. I’m fine here.”

“Okay, I’ll be home for dinner.”

He leaves the shop and walks one block up to get to the main street where the café is. It’s busy when he gets there, but it’s also clear Wanda and Pietro have just arrived to help Steve with the midday rush. He gets in line and a voice behind him makes him turn in surprise.

“Hey stranger,” Natasha says. She smirks like she knows everything. And she might. But that’s just how they are.

“Hey Nat. Class later?” he asks, gesturing at the gym bag on her shoulder. According to Winnie, she’s teaching most of the ballet classes and about half the yoga classes at the studio down the road now. An injury put her career as a professional dancer in jeopardy when they were twenty, so she changed course to become a teacher. She’s actually the only person Bucky knows well who’s left and come back to town.

She smiles. “My little ones after lunch,” she says. “And how are you? I’ve heard so many rumors the last two days.”

Bucky groans. “At least half of them are probably true.”

“You two dating again or is this some temporary punishment for yourselves?”

“More the second than the first.”

She hums unhappily. But then they’re at the front of the line and Bucky’s trying to give Wanda his order before Steve leans over and cancels it.

“You’re not paying,” Steve says.

Bucky narrows his eyes, not looking away as he stuffs a ten in the tip jar. “Give me my caffeine, Rogers.”

“No caffeine, babe,” Steve insists. “I’ll make you something good. Grab him one of the chocolate dipped shortbreads, please Wanda.”

“You’re on thin ice, Stevie.”

Steve just rolls his eyes. “Sure, babe, whatever you say. Take your cookie and I’ll come meet you in a second.”

Bucky pouts over to a table beside the counter and Nat joins him once her coffee order is placed. She looks smug. Again.

“God, you two are just as bad as ever.” He rolls his eyes and nibbles on his cookie. Steve knows his favorites still. “He still loves you.”

“I know.”

“I set him up on a few dates after you left.”

Bucky glares out of the corner of his eye. “If I wanted to know, I would’ve asked him myself.”

Nat just shrugs. “It didn’t go well. Men, women, dark hair, light hair. Peggy was back in town for a week and I thought maybe she would spark something. She had a crush on him in high school.”

“I’m extremely aware of that,” Bucky says. He’d been a bitch to Peggy because he’d been trying to express his feelings for Steve at the time. They made peace once it was clear that Steve was head over heels for Bucky.

“It didn’t work. They had a drink and Peggy told me that he talked about you half the night. And Sarah the rest of it. Typical really.”

“Why are you meddling now?”

Nat shrugs nonchalantly. The one thing Natasha never ever is is nonchalant. “You’re ripe for meddling.”

“Leave him alone, Nat,” Steve says from over Bucky’s shoulder. He passes a cup to Bucky and continues to shoot Nat speaking glances. “Stop trying to influence him like everyone else. Just let him be.”

Nat shrugs again. This time it’s dismissive instead of faux nonchalant. “See you later, James,” she says, patting the top of his head before leaving.

Steve drops into her vacated chair. “You got a haircut.” Bucky nods. “Looks really nice, Buck.”

“Thanks. Feels better too.”

Steve smiles and takes Bucky’s hand on the tabletop. “Wanna go driving again? Find a spot to sit?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They drink their coffees and Bucky eats his cookie as they drive. Steve made him his usual but with decaf, so he’s almost forgiven. Steve takes a meandering road along a different edge of town than he did the previous day. It’s pretty and crisp out, the heat keeping them toasty in the cab. But Bucky knows there’s always an extra hoodie in the tiny backseat.

After ten minutes, Bucky’s pretty sure where Steve’s going. When Steve parks by the edge of the trees ten minutes after that, it’s clear he was right. They’d used this little spot as their own personal lovers lane when they were younger. They unbuckle and Steve shuffles them both down to the passenger side so the pedals aren’t in the way of their legs. They finish their coffees while quietly cuddling. But it’s almost no time from putting them back in the cupholders to Bucky draping himself across Steve’s lap and kissing him.

He just assumes this was Steve’s reason for coming out here. They’ve never come out here without at least making out in the truck. Steve’s hands slide up the back of his shirt, biting his lower lip and groaning.

“God, babe, killin’ me with your hair like this. So fuckin’ pretty. Just wanna pull you around by it.” Bucky groans and grinds down on Steve’s dick. He’s so on board with Steve pulling him around by his hair and hopefully fucking him in the truck. It’s been a long time.

The hair pulling happens about sixty seconds later.

The fucking about twenty minutes after that.

Bucky knows Steve used to keep lube in the glove box when they were together and it only strikes him as weird that he still does when Steve slips his second finger in. The thought passes and he comes to the conclusion that Steve was hoping for this opportunity, or planning for it. Happy that Steve’s boy scout tendencies haven’t changed, he moans for more and gets another finger.

“Think you might be more of a slut for it than you used to be,” Steve says fondly, a chuckle in his voice as he slides his fingers out and begins to slick himself up.

“Uh huh,” Bucky agrees. “Miss you.”

Steve leans over him, the head of his cock just resting at Bucky’s fluttering entrance.

“S’that right? Don’t miss sex, just miss me?”

“Miss making love with you,” Bucky admits. Steve kisses him, but Bucky keeps his eyes open long enough to see the anguished furrow of his brows. At least he’s not in this alone. Then Steve pushes into him and Bucky feels whole again.

It’s not over quickly. And they’re at it again twenty minutes after Steve tosses the wet wipe in the trash bag in the backseat.

The second time, Bucky’s in Steve’s lap and they’re breathing the same air, watching each other with open, clear eyes. Bucky doesn’t think they’ve ever had sex this intense before. Desperate and passionate, sure. But this is something different. Their lips barely brush, but they’re sharing the same breath. Their foreheads stay pressed together as Steve guides Bucky in riding him. The windows are fully steamed up and the air inside the cab is humid and heady and smells of sex and Steve’s cologne. Bucky’s slick and open already when he sinks onto Steve for the second time. But it’s been so long since he’s been filled up like this, so deeply. Steve’s hands are on his waist, one thumb idly tracing his stretched rim, making Bucky shiver and shake to pieces as he inches toward climax.

Even so, it’s unhurried. Not just as if Bucky isn’t expected home later. But as if he won’t be leaving on Monday. Steve licks Bucky’s lips. And the seat is rubbing the skin on Bucky’s knees, raw across the front as sweat pools on the backs. His erection slides up and down Steve’s stupid abs, giving him soft friction.

Then Bucky is tensing and coming across Steve’s chest and stomach, clenching on his cock inside him, still trying to keep his rhythm. Steve helps him, guiding his hips.

“So good, babe,” Steve murmurs against Bucky’s slack mouth.

“Please, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, his body just one raw nerve as he bounces. “Come inside me, please.”

Any other time he’d be gasping and begging and trying to goad Steve into letting him go faster. But not today. Today Steve has him and he doesn’t want to break the careful, intense atmosphere around them.

Steve kisses him, groaning as he spills into Bucky again.

They stay like that for a while, until Bucky starts feeling cold and too sticky. Then Steve cleans him up with another few wet wipes and helps him redress, even pulling on the oversized hoodie from the backseat so Bucky isn’t cold anymore. But they stay parked in their spot, with Bucky on Steve’s lap, for a while longer.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky murmurs into his neck. “This was a selfish, bad idea. But I couldn’t watch you walk away. I don’t know how you did it.”

“I tried drinking, and I tried working, and eventually I just gave up,” Steve says. “Most of the time, I just act like you’re coming home someday.”

Bucky kisses his neck and doesn’t agree or disagree. Either would be a lie, because he just doesn’t know. He doesn’t tell Steve he’ll be home for Christmas. He doesn’t want them to make any promises before they figure out how this weekend ends.

When they finally have to get going so Bucky can be home for dinner, Steve kisses him and makes sure to pull him into the middle seat beside him for the drive. They hold hands on Bucky’s thigh all the way back to town. Steve parks in front of the Barnes home in his usual spot and walks Bucky up to the door. Always a gentleman, even after fucking Bucky’s brains out in the cab of the truck on a back road. It’s not even the dozenth time he’s walked Bucky to the door and politely kissed him goodbye after doing so.

Steve takes his face gently in hand and kisses him. It’s chaste, but it lasts ages. Bucky leans into Steve’s chest, tilting up for the best angle.

The door opens and Becca clears her throat. “Are you staying for dinner, Steve?” she asks.

“Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow,” he says. He turns back to Bucky. “Ma and I will see you all for the First Lights tomorrow night, okay?” Bucky nods. “Good night, babe.” He kisses Bucky again as if Becca isn’t even there.

“Night Stevie,” Bucky murmurs as Steve starts to pull away. It gets him a quick kiss to the forehead before Steve is gone down the stairs and driving away.

Becca scoffs as she watches him watch Steve drive off. “He’s wooing you.”

“That’s nice,” Bucky says lightly. And she might be right. But it also might just be Steve taking the one chance he has to have what he wants again. He follows her inside when he can’t hear the truck anymore.

* * *

After dinner, Bucky is laying on the couch when Judy appears next to him, looking abashed. He moves to get up, but she just crawls over him to cuddle like they used to when she was little.

“I’m only mad because I miss you,” she says. “And because I love Steve too and don’t want him to be sad.”

“Neither do I,” Bucky says. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but—”

“Shut up, I know you love him. I’ve never been alive in a time when you didn’t,” she grumbles. “Ma says I can’t tell you what to do because it’s your life. Which is fine. But it’s kind of mine too. So can you at least call more?”

“I’m coming for Christmas,” Bucky says.

“You’re gonna try?”

Bucky shakes his head. “No, I already bought my ticket.”

Judy half sits up so he can see her smile. “How long?!”

“The whole week. I don’t know what I want to do, Judes. So I’m trying to figure it out, I promise.” She nods. “But I’m sorry that I haven’t been around for you.”

She tucks herself into his arms. “If you keep trying, I’ll forgive you.” He relaxes against her. “You smell like Steve.”

“It’s his sweatshirt.”

“Not just that. You smell like Steve.” She pulls back suddenly. “Ew! Gross, Bucky! Take a shower!”

He laughs. “Later.”

“No, I don’t wanna cuddle with you now. You have cooties.”

He laughs, trying to tickle her. “You’re not even touching my skin,” he chuckles. “I’m wearing like three layers.”

“Hands!”

“I’ve washed them like three times since then. I’m not a caveman.”

She pretends to gag, but settles mostly in his arms. “So gross. Is that all you two do when you run off?”

“Well, no, I went to see Ma Sarah yesterday. We watched TV and made Steve chop wood.” She raises an eyebrow as if that’s an innuendo.

“You took a shower there.”

“Only because Steve was taking one, which I realize sounds more damning that it really was.” Judy laughs at him. “Really, we talk and cuddle just like we used to at home too. And we had a nap together yesterday, just a nap.”

“But you still sneak off to fool around.”

“I mean, we’ve been doing that since we were sixteen, Judes. It’s basically reflex now.”

He’s kind of joking, but also kind of not. And she somehow gets that, rolling her eyes in fond exasperation. Beth leans over the edge of the couch and raises her brows at the change in Judy’s attitude toward their brother.

“Bucky’s coming back for a week for Christmas,” she says to Beth, whose eyes go wide in surprise. “And he’s been gross with Steve all day.”

Beth rolls her eyes so hard Bucky worries they’ll get stuck. “Coulda guessed that,” she says. “Did you tell him you’re coming for Christmas?”

“Not yet. I will, eventually. Is it okay with you two if I stay here that week?” he asks.

They both turn confused expressions on him. “Why wouldn’t it be?” Beth asks.

“Neither of you seemed all that happy to see me when I got here on Wednesday. I think this is the first time you’ve smiled at me all weekend,” Bucky says.

Judy drops like a stone on his chest to hug him. “Please stay with us.” He kisses the top of her head and rubs her back. She’s twenty now, going to a local college, but in a lot of ways she’s still just a scared teenager whose brother abandoned everything for a chance at a record deal.

“Unless you’re gonna stay with Steve,” Beth says. “We can live with that too.” Bucky nods and squeezes her hand.

He and Judy spend the rest of the evening on the couch together watching the earliest Christmas movies of the season. Her favorite is A Princess For Christmas, which he doesn’t want to admit he loves too.

* * *

On Sunday, Bucky sleeps in a bit. He packs most of his things and goes downstairs to help Winnie get things ready for the First Lights Ceremony later. George is at the barbershop for the day and the girls are out with Becca. So it’s just him and his Ma for the first time since Wednesday.

“How are you feeling, honey?”

“I’m okay, Ma, thanks.” He helps her pack snacks into bags and then into a bigger tote. “Did Dad tell you I’m coming for Christmas?”

She nods. “I’m glad. It’s hard not seeing you on special days.” She doesn’t put an ounce of guilt into the statement. But he feels it anyway.

Late in the afternoon, when all the snacks and family members have been accounted for, Bucky goes to get the outside picnic blankets from the dryer. They usually get to City Hall Park early to get a good seat for the lighting and music that starts the Christmas season in town. And they need comfy, dry blankets to sit on. They always bring enough for Steve and Sarah too, while the Rogerses bring the hot chocolate for when they get cold. Bucky’s just packing the blankets into a bag when Steve comes in the front door.

“Hey babe,” he greets, smiling like Bucky won’t be leaving before the sun’s even up. He leans in for a kiss that Bucky happily gives. “I gotta pick up Ma and then get the hot chocolate to go from the cafe. Wanna come with?”

“Did you drive all the way over here to ask?”

“Maybe,” Steve says, smirking.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Idiot. Yes, I’ll come with you.” He turns his head toward the kitchen. “Ma! The blankets are packed. I’m going with Stevie to get Ma Sarah and the hot chocolate!”

“Okay, drive safe!” she calls back.

They climb into Steve’s truck, Bucky in the middle seat like usual, and he takes the back way toward his house because the main road will be busy today. Steve, for all that he’s acting like Bucky isn’t leaving, is fidgety today.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Bucky asks softly as they roll up to a stop sign.

Steve shivers at the pet name. “Can I stay over tonight?”

“You sure you want to? I have to be up at four thirty to leave for my flight.”

Steve nods. “I just want one more night where it feels normal. That’s all. Is that okay?”

“Of course it is, Stevie.” He rests his hand on Steve’s thigh and relaxes against his shoulder, trying to give him what little comfort either of them can find in this situation.

They get to the house and Bucky waits in the truck at Steve’s word for him to bring Sarah out. She’s bundled up and carrying extra gloves, knitting needles, and her yarn bag. When Steve opens the door, Bucky relieves her of everything she’s carrying and reaches out a hand to help her up. Steve hovers and tries to half lift her into the cab until she turns and boxes his ear.

“It was my heart, not my legs, Steven Grant,” she scolds. “I can get into your truck.” She uses Bucky’s hand as a handle and pulls herself easily into the seat, buckling in and sharing a look with Bucky. “He fusses!” she huffs.

Bucky nods. “Only over us,” he says. “We should feel special. If a little annoyed.”

Sarah laughs and pats his cheek as Steve gets in on the driver’s side, pouting slightly at being thwarted. Bucky rubs his shoulder consolingly, and when Steve pulls out onto the road and drops a hand onto Bucky’s knee again, he just covers it with his own.

They park behind the café and Steve goes inside to get the hot chocolate while Bucky helps Sarah. Well, ‘helps’ is a strong word. They mostly just climb out together and carry on as they always have, poking at Steve. He misses all the dreams of having her as a mother-in-law from his teens. He’d been excited to have one that he loved, instead of all the monster-in-law stereotypes he remembered from romcoms.

Steve meets back up with them around the front of the building. Sarah threads her arm through his, leaving his free hand open to hold Bucky’s. The Barneses are already in the park and they set out to find where they’ve set up. Winnie packed nice cushions for the parents and had Bucky pack plenty of lap blankets because it was cold. So they have quite the setup when Bucky and the Rogerses arrive. Becca and Michael are both there and Judy’s picking over the snacks already. Steve grabs things for Sarah and Bucky sets up the hot chocolate, before making a comfy little area in the corner of the big blanket for him and Steve.

He ends up pulled down into Steve’s lap, laughing and covering them with a blanket as Steve kisses his cheek.

“No shenanigans under there,” Judy warns teasingly.

“Too cold for that,” Steve says with absolutely none of the shame he normally would around their family.

Bucky whacks him on the chest. “Oh my god, you’re horrible. Pass me a candy cane.” Steve even peels back the plastic for him, watching as Bucky sucks on the end of the candy. “Stop being gross in public, Steven,” he warns from around his candy.

Steve laughs lowly into his ear. “Sorry. You leaving tomorrow has me feeling kinda reckless,” he murmurs.

“Well save it for later. It’s too fucking cold.”

Steve chuckles again, cuddling Bucky closer. “You’re like a warm, very bratty blanket,” he teases.

“Rude!” But Beth and Judy are giggling with him and it feels nice.

How many outdoor festivals had he been to with people in LA? And none of them felt as light or easy or fun as just waiting for a short, ceremonial Christmas lights event. It’s not even a festival. They wait around for maybe an hour and a half of programming, including a speech from the mayor. Who Bucky doesn’t know the name of because he doesn’t vote in this city anymore. He’s pretty sure all those nights with beer and picnic blankets and other interesting new artists playing across the grass were supposed to feel like this. But they didn’t.

He tucks his cold nose against Steve’s throat and keeps sucking on his candy cane. One of Steve’s hands is trailing up and down his thigh like he wants to touch Bucky more but won’t while they’re in front of people. He knows Steve has an infrequently tapped exhibitionist streak, hence their not infrequent sex in the truck. But this would be too much even for him. The gentle touching is nice though, a promise for later. He hopes Steve’s request to stay the night is equal parts wanting to make love and wanting to cuddle while they sleep.

Bucky would be hard pressed to decide which he’s missed more.

He looks across the blanket and sees his parents nestled beside each other on their little backrest cushion seats, Sarah sitting on Winnie’s other side knitting a hat. Becca is sitting between Michael’s legs, leaning back against his chest as they share a blanket and cup of cocoa. Judy and Beth are laying on their stomachs with their own blankets, picking out their favorite parts of the chex mix.

“This is nice,” Bucky says. “Family.” Steve hums in agreement, kissing the top of Bucky’s head.

Bucky spends the rest of the evening in Steve’s lap. They watch the mayor give a speech and the head of Christmas cheer for the year, the owner of the animal shelter, turn on the City Hall illuminations. There’s a short choral concert from the high school choir. And Nat’s upper level dance group does a brief recital of one of the pieces from the Nutcracker.

The festival is over before it gets too cold, but it’s fully dark and the lights are sparkling against the white facade of city hall.

“Stay there, babe,” Steve says, pulling out his phone. “Candy down.” Bucky rolls his eyes and lowers it from his face. He licks his probably very red lips, chasing the sugar. Steve takes a moment to pose Bucky like he used to. He snaps a few pictures of Bucky with the lit up building behind him. They flick through them together, candy cane back in Bucky’s mouth.

“These two,” Bucky says. He takes Steve’s phone and sends them to himself. Their numbers haven’t changed and they’re still saved in each other’s phones. But they haven’t taken the liberty of texting since Bucky’s been home. It’s the first message in the thread that wasn’t imported from Bucky’s old phone. The one above it is from Steve too and it just says ‘I love you’. Typical.

Steve and Bucky gather things to take Sarah home and Bucky lets Steve tell her that he’s staying over once she’s inside. She pats his cheek and tells him that was obvious. It makes Steve blush a very appealing red. Which always makes Bucky giggle. And Bucky laughing at him usually makes Steve pinch him. Finger and thumb pinch his ass hard and he squeals, smacking Steve’s arm.

“Go on, I’m fine,” Sarah says, waving them and their shenanigans out the door. “Go sleep or whatever. Have a safe flight, Bucky. Give me a hug before you go.”

Bucky wraps her in his arms and kisses her cheek. “Love you, Ma,” he murmurs.

“Oh, I love you too, honey. I’ll see you again soon.”

When Steve and Bucky get back to the Barnes house, they head upstairs almost right away. Everyone else is getting ready to shuffle off to bed too, but Bucky stops to give everyone hugs goodnight and goodbye. George is taking him to the airport in the morning, since he has to be up early to open the barbershop and is more of an early bird than the rest of them anyway.

Steve shuts Bucky’s bedroom door behind them and finally starts peeling Bucky out of his coat, kissing his cherry red lips. It takes a moment too long to realize that Bucky’s still wearing Steve’s hoodie.

“Fuck, you always look so good in my clothes, babe,” Steve says, one hand slipping under Bucky’s shirt and the other pulling his hair to leave him open for kisses.

“You want it back?”

“Keep it if you want to. If not, just leave it, don’t tell me. Let me pretend you’re keeping it, just for tonight.”

Bucky wraps both arms around Steve’s neck and kisses him. “Of course I want to keep it, sweetheart,” he murmurs. He’s pretty sure he means it too. It kills him to see Steve so sad over the idea that Bucky might not want a reminder of him. The entire body of Bucky’s work is a reminder of him.

Steve sighs softly, shucking his own jacket and pressing kisses down Bucky’s jaw. They part enough to pull off more layers and Steve backs Bucky onto the bed, reaching down to pull off their underwear.

“Fuck, babe, your mouth,” Steve groans, licking at Bucky’s plump, sugary lips.

“You want my mouth on you?” Bucky asks.

Steve shakes his head. “Wanna be inside you one more time.”

Now isn’t the time to tell him that Bucky’s coming back for Christmas. He’ll tell him before he leaves though. It might kill Steve not to know that. Bucky just presses his lips to Steve’s, humming and licking into his mouth. Steve moans and reaches down to give them both a few rough strokes with his hand before pulling away to find the lube he tossed in the drawer the other day. Bucky kisses down Steve’s neck, sucking a hickey into the skin above his collarbone.

Steve presses slick fingers inside Bucky, gently stretching and pulling and teasing. Bucky gasps into Steve’s neck when he brushes his prostate and presses on it from the outside. It sparks up his spine and he grinds down onto Steve’s fingers, begging in low, desperate noises. Once he’s comfortable, Steve slicks his cock and presses slowly into Bucky.

“More, please, Stevie,” Bucky begs. He feels like he might be on the edge of crying again. He opens his eyes to watch Steve and despite the pleasure on his face, there are tears slipping down his cheeks. Bucky stretches up to kiss them away, even as they keep coming. “Love you,” he whispers.

“Only if you mean it,” Steve says.

“Always, sweetheart,” Bucky replies.

Steve nuzzles his nose into Bucky’s. “Love you too.” He rolls his hips and Bucky gasps. Every time Steve’s inside him, he feels like his whole self again. Steve doesn’t let up, sucking little marks into his collar and gripping his hair while Bucky clings to him and rakes nails down Steve's back.

Bucky knows he’s not going to last like this, but he doesn’t care. They’re babbling sweet, pointless words at each other, moaning softly and not realizing that there are other people in the house. They’re probably not loud enough for anyone to hear and the only bedroom beside Bucky’s is Becca’s empty one. But neither of them even stop to think about it.

They barely part enough for Steve to get a full stroke, so he rolls his hips in short, hard circles that drive Bucky crazy. It’s not long before he’s groaning and begging Steve because he’s going to come. Steve swallows every noise he makes and lets out a groan of his own when he feels the warmth of Bucky’s release on his belly. His thrusts become less rolling and get faster, then Steve’s whimpering into Bucky’s mouth and spilling inside him.

Neither of them move for several long minutes.

“I can’t move my legs,” Bucky whispers eventually.

Steve huffs a laugh. “Lazy. I’ll clean us up.” He kisses Bucky’s pouty lips again before shrugging on the robe hanging on the back of the door. He comes back clean and with a warm cloth to wipe Bucky down.

“Shower with me?” Bucky asks. “I don’t wanna do it in the morning.

Steve, of course, agrees and they spend maybe twenty minutes getting clean again. Then Bucky packs away the last of his things and sets out his clothes for the morning, including Steve’s hoodie. He’s taking it, he’s decided. Once that’s done, he climbs naked into bed with Steve and lets himself be cuddled.

“My ass is gonna be so fucking sore on the plane tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve teases.

“I haven’t had sex in three years and you fucked me three times in past thirty-six hours,” Bucky deadpans. “Don’t know if you remember, but you’re kinda big.”

Steve grins evilly. “Maybe I’m counting on being a pain in your ass for a little longer.”

Bucky groans to cover a laugh. “You have the  _ worst _ sense of humor.”

“But I always make you laugh.”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Bucky says. He kisses Steve sweetly goodnight and rolls over so Steve is spooned up behind him.

“Love you,” Steve says.

“I love you too.”

It’s been a long day and Steve falls asleep pretty easily. Bucky lays awake in his arms for ages. He tries everything to get to sleep, but he doesn’t want to wake Steve up by tossing and turning. He knows that Steve has the morning shift at the café, and Bucky doesn’t have anything to do tomorrow because he planned to be too tired after the flight. After an hour and half of unsuccessfully trying to sleep, he pulls out his notebook and props himself up a little so he can write. Steve’s arm slips more securely around his waist and he nuzzles into Bucky’s spine in his sleep.

The words come easily. Especially seeing what Steve wrote at the top of the page.

_ ‘Tis the damn season _ — the sarcastic words he said only days earlier.

The words resonate in his chest, something settles into place and it's right there, right in his grasp. A sad, homesick holiday song slips from his heart onto the page as easy as breathing. He taps out a little beat and hums a melody that he sketches vaguely in chords off to one side. He can polish it up on his computer tomorrow, or on his guitar when he gets back.

Steve hums himself half awake and paws at Bucky for a moment, nosing at his neck.

“Hun, you’re tickling me,” Bucky murmurs.

“Trying to,” Steve mumbles. One hand slides down Bucky’s thigh. Half asleep Steve is always horny.

Bucky rolls over and gives him a kiss. “You’re not awake, sweetheart, go back to sleep.”

Steve humphs and drifts back off, wrapping his warm body around Bucky again.

Bucky taps the pen and another few lines begin to form.

_ And wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m fakin’  
_ _ And the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own  
_ _ To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known _

He doesn’t sleep that night, writing and imprinting the memory of Steve’s arms around him onto his heart.

Two minutes before his alarm goes off and probably wakes Steve, Bucky turns it off and copies the chorus of his new song onto a fresh page. He writes at an angle in the open right margin:

_ See you at Christmas  
_ _ Love, Bucky _

He tears it out and folds it just right so it will stand up on the nightstand for Steve to see when he wakes up. Then he slowly extracts himself from Steve’s arms. Easier said than done because Steve has never willingly let go of Bucky in his life. But Bucky eventually gets free. He dresses in the clothes he set out, pulls on Steve’s hoodie without a shirt, then a coat and scarf over that with jeans and his boots. He kneels beside the bed to kiss Steve’s sleeping mouth one last time.

The chorus of Leaving on a Jet Plane floats through his head, bringing tears to his eyes and he knows it’ll be the first song in his headphones when he gets to the airport. Only because he won’t subject his dad to him any more weepy and maudlin than he’s already going to be in the car. He makes sure Steve’s tucked in, grabs his bag, and turns off the lamp before he leaves.

He’s halfway through toast and coffee when George comes down the stairs. He seems to notice that Bucky’s not doing so great and blessedly doesn’t mention it.

They drive the hour to Albany in companionable silence with the radio playing in the background. George pulls up at the departures drop off zone and turns to grab Bucky in a tight hug.

“I love you, Bucky,” he says, gruff and low and earnest. “You do what’s right for you and we’ll take care of everyone else. Okay?”

“Okay Dad. I’ll see you in a few weeks,” Bucky says. “Love you too.”

Once he waves goodbye to his dad, Bucky pops his headphones in and queues up Leaving on a Jet Plane so he can have a good mope while he’s waiting in line at security. He repeats it twice before he gets to the front of the line. They have to wand him and feel the hood of his sweatshirt because he can’t just take it off. It was unwise to wear it without an undershirt, but he just couldn’t stand to not have Steve against his skin still. He’ll live with a few extra minutes at security.

Bucky sits at the gate messing with some composition software on his laptop to polish the melody for his new song until his flight is called.

He finishes it to his personal satisfaction halfway back to LA. And he decides he wants one of the photos Steve took of him yesterday as the cover for the single. He’s paid for internet already, so he just emails Steve to ask. The answer comes within five minutes and he says yes, so Bucky sends an artist consent form to Steve and asks him to fill it out. He sends the photo, song title and lyrics, and a recording of the melody from his computer to his agent, promising a rough demo by that evening.

She’s ecstatic in her reply, telling him if the demo is as good as it seems, she wants him in the studio tomorrow to record so they can release it for this Christmas season. It’s insanely fast, but Bucky wrote most of the song in the last twelve hours, so it doesn’t even register. He just wants the song out there. He wants Steve to hear it.

Once they land at LAX, Bucky stuffs his coat and scarf in the strap of his bag before heading out to meet his uber and go home.

In the closet of his tiny, shoebox apartment, Bucky records an acoustic demo of ‘tis the damn season. Listening back, it has to be acoustic. Maybe a piano and a bit of light percussion, but just him and the guitar is enough. He might take a violin, but he honestly doesn’t think it’s necessary. He sends the demo to his agent. She calls him fifteen minutes later.

“Acoustic, in the studio at 10am tomorrow,” she says.

“Cool. I’m going back for Christmas, just fyi.”

“Fine, as long as we get this out by the tenth, I’m happy. I don’t want to have to wait for next Christmas for this song. Where has it been hiding the last two months, Bucky?”

“It wasn’t hiding,” he says. “It didn’t exist yet. This is just what I got up to over Thanksgiving.”

She’s quiet for a long time. “Okay, I’ll find a way to spin it if you have radio interviews.”

“You actually think this is gonna get attention?”

“Bucky,” she begins sternly. “This is the anthem of lost love at Christmas. It’s the kind of song sad millennials who are disillusioned about the holidays will play on repeat. You almost made me cry. It’s going to be great.”

* * *

The song is recorded, mixed, and distributed within the week and Bucky is pretty sure his life is about to change again. Just when he was supposed to be making real decisions about whether ‘making it’ is worth the pain, he’s starting to make it. The song gets featured on a Spotify up and coming playlist and a new release playlist and a sad Christmas playlist. It gets spotlighted on a local radio station within four days of its Friday release. Apparently a local Albany station started playing it Saturday. And his tiny, hometown station in Brookville picked it up on Friday. No doubt someone there has a Google alert on his name.

Bucky finds himself swept on the tide of sudden success, but he still feels numb. The ice in his chest is back, no matter that the sun is shining and it’s hitting 70°F.

The Thursday after the song is released, Bucky is on Jimmy Kimmel Live to perform it. After soundcheck, he’s not nervous anymore. Singing in front of people doesn’t bother him, and performing with emotion is never going to be a problem with this song.

He gets to the bridge before he realizes that he might cry on TV. He sings about the people in LA, the so-called friends who’ve texted to congratulate him and secretly hope he’ll fail. The ones he knows will pretend he isn’t singing about them here. And when he reaches the line where he leaves the warmth of a bed with Steve, he knows he can’t stay.

He sings the final lines of the bridge. Promises to be Steve’s for the weekend, silent tears crowding his lashes. He finishes out the final chorus and lets a tear fall as he repeats the last line of the outro.

“ _ It always leads to you in my hometown _ .” He breathes once more. “I’m comin’ home, Stevie,” he says softly into the mic just before the sound fades out.

He doubts they’ll edit out his admission. No matter what any producer might say, real emotion is a ratings magnet.

Bucky gets home from the theatre by 7pm, since it records in LA and is broadcast on the east coast first. He’s on the phone with the airline by 7:05.

“Hi there, I know it’s really busy this time of year, but I have a round trip flight from LAX to Albany leaving on the 21st and I’m wondering if it’s possible to move it to tomorrow, without the round trip,” Bucky says.

“Let me have a look for you,” the rep says. She gets his confirmation number. “Is it a family emergency?”

“I mean, not the kind you probably mean. I was going to visit for Christmas, and well, now I’m just going home. My boyfriend shouldn’t have to wait any longer for me to get my shit together and be happy with him.”

She makes a soft ‘aww’ and he can hear her tapping on the keyboard. “I do have one seat available on a flight tomorrow morning. It’s more expensive, but if you don’t need a round trip, your existing ticket will cover the difference with enough left over for a checked bag. Will you be checking any bags?”

“Yes, two,” Bucky says. “Can you charge my card on file for the remainder?”

“You’ll have to confirm the number for me, but yes,” she replies.

Bucky reads off the number and she gives him his new flight information while he finishes packing up. About ten minutes after he gets off the phone with the airline, his agent knocks on the door. She raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow at the packed bags and the guitar strapped into a hard case. The walls and furniture are empty.

“You’re leaving right when you’re getting everything you wanted?”

“No,” Bucky says. “I just realized that everything I ever wanted is back home in the bed I forced myself out of to come back here. You can sell whatever’s left here. My flight leaves in the morning.”

She just stares at him. “You have a radio interview in the morning. Your phone was busy, so I came to tell you.”

Bucky shrugs. “I was changing my flight.”

“At least do the interview, talk about Steve if you want to. You can call in for it.”

“Sure Kara, that’s fine.”

She looks around again and something clicks. “There’s nothing I can say to make you stay, is there?”

“Not anymore.” He huffs out a breath. “Look, if you can come up with a way for me to work from home without traveling for more than one night, I’ll seriously consider it. I can record in Albany or in the city if necessary. But I don’t want to fly here every other week or have to tour without Steve. I’ve spent enough time without him and I’m never doing that again.” She nods. “If you can’t, you can keep whatever you make from selling the furniture as your severance.”

“I’ll call you after the holidays and let you know,” she says and they shake on it.

Bucky finishes packing and barely gets any sleep. The radio interview is for one of those morning drive time shows, so he’s up early and drinking his coffee as he finishes getting things settled so he can leave LA for good.

They ask about his meteoric success and he laughs it off because he doesn’t feel it at all. It’s not real. But he can’t exactly say that.

“This is a sad Christmas song, dude,” the host says.

“Does it help that it was written about Thanksgiving?” Bucky asks, joking even though it’s true.

The host, whose name Bucky hasn’t bothered to learn, laughs. “Really? How’d this come to you?”

“Well, I went home for the first time in a while over the long holiday and my boyfriend and I got back together for the weekend. Then I had to leave to come back here. I wrote most of it the night before I left while he was sleeping in bed next to me.”

“So this is autobiographical?” the host asks. Bucky confirms it is, with some artistic license. “Is this boyfriend the ‘Stevie’ you spoke to during your Jimmy Kimmel performance last night?”

Bucky huffs a laugh. “Yeah, though I’m the only one who still calls him Stevie. I’ve loved him since we were probably in kindergarten. I write songs for him a lot.”

“It’s a great Christmas song for people who are sad about the holidays,” the host says, “but it’s also just a great song about lost love. So do you have maybe one Christmas song and one non-Christmas song to pair it with? Like a musical wine pairing.”

“Ohh, good question. I think, Back to December by Taylor Swift would go well, if that’s not too cocky of me. I feel like they vibe. And I’d personally pair this with Leaving on a Jet Plane, any version is good, but I’m partial to the Peter, Paul, and Mary version myself. It’s what I listened to waiting for security when I left Monday morning.”

“You’re just compounding the depression, dude,” the host says, chuckling.

“I mean, you’ve heard the song. I’m a sad sack.”

The host laughs. “So, can we expect more tearjerkers from you soon?”

“I’m hoping the music I start writing after the holidays will be a lot happier. If he’ll still have me.” Bucky hears the co-host aww-ing over the other microphone.

He finishes out the interview easily, puts Steve’s hoodie on over his t-shirt and gets his things together. He’s got the two big rolling suitcases he moved out west with, his battered duffle bag, and his guitar case. The latter two will get carried on, so he can make sure his baby doesn’t get damaged. But it’s a lot to maneuver through the airport. So he carefully lugs everything outside before ordering the uber.

* * *

Steve’s working an unusual afternoon shift to cover for Pietro when Becca Barnes comes in. She’s just off shift, judging by her scrubs and the flyaways falling out of her braid. There’s no one in line and hardly anyone in the cafe, so he leans down on the counter to chat.

The last two weeks haven’t been easy. He woke to an empty bed on Monday morning, although sweet, mother hen Bucky had carefully tucked him in before leaving. And the note Bucky left promising to come back for Christmas and confirmed by his family helped. It’s in his wallet and he’s already at the point of reading it or listening to the song at least a few times a day. It’s sad, but it makes him feel better to know exactly how Bucky feels.

“Hey Steve,” Becca says. She pulls out her phone. “Can you translate this for me?”

“From what?” Steve asks, brows furrowing in confusion. He took French in high school, but so did Becca.

“From Bucky into normal human English. It’s just a string of numbers, but it doesn’t look random. And you’re the only one who ever understands my idiot brother.”

Steve takes the phone and looks at the text. It is a string of numbers, with a two letter prefix.

“Becca, this is a flight number.”

“Oh, must be his Christmas flight. Dumbass.” She rolls her eyes and reaches for the phone.

“Do you watch Jimmy Kimmel?”

She raises a single brow. “You know I had an early shift, and what the hell does that matter?”

Steve pulls out his own phone and flips to a video that he’s watched at least three times already today. He hits play and shoves it into her hands. Then takes her phone to look up the flight number.

“Steve, I’ve heard the song already.”

“Skip to the last twenty seconds,” he says, distracted.

“ _ It always leads to you in my hometown _ ,” Bucky croons through Steve’s phone speakers. “I’m coming home, Stevie.”

“He looks devastated,” Becca says. She watches Steve for a minute. “You think he’s just had enough and he’s coming home.”

“Becks, he sent you this number right before he would've had to be at the airport. And it lands in an hour and a half.”

“You think he’s coming today?”

Steve nods quickly. “Call it intuition,” he says. “Can you call someone to mind the shop? If I leave now I can get to the airport in time to pick him up.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” she asks. Not refusing to do what he asked, just not wanting him to get hurt.

He shrugs. “Then I lose a few hours of my afternoon and some gas. He’s still coming home for Christmas. But if I'm right and I don’t go, he’s gonna be trying to make it on the shuttle with his bags and his guitar and no one will know he’s coming home. So I have to go. Call your Ma or see if Carol has time to just mind the shop until someone can come in.”

“I know how to run the shop, Steven. Go if you’re going,” she says, shooing him and sounding just like Ma Winnie. He grins and runs to his truck. He stops by the house to let his Ma know not to wait on him and to grab a few things. Then he’s on the road to Albany.

He parks in the short term lot and doesn’t care about the cost. He gets into the arrivals area and baggage claim just before the flight he hopes is Bucky’s lands. He watches the little flight number on the screen until it says Arrived. Then waits for it to list the baggage claim carousel. If the bags are coming off, then the people are too.

It’s another few minutes before he sees large-ish numbers of people coming out toward baggage claim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I'd love to hear what you thought!
> 
> Next up: cute sappy ending with all the family and friends and fluff, and an epilogue in three parts


	3. it always leads to you in my hometown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happy reunions, a three part epilogue, and a wild Barton appears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My very busy week at work became very chaotic and has now calmed back down to merely 'busy' so here's the final chapter! Thank you as ever for reading!
> 
> Mild Warning: all three parts of the epilogue reference the pandemic and lockdown, with discussions of public health measures. If this is a sensitive subject for you, you may want to only read the third epilogue, which has the least discussion. Or you're welcome to message me or comment and I'd be happy to provide an explanation. None of the description is graphic, no one is ill, but there is definite discussion of early and autumn lockdown measures. It's the first time I've written about the pandemic because (homebody as I am) I don't find lockdown to be particularly inspiring.
> 
> Also a very surface level reference to homophobia on Twitter, which is shut down by the Friends of Stucky

Bucky’s flight is fine. He changes planes in Chicago and ends up on the last leg to Albany next to an excitable blond guy with a butterfly bandage above his eyebrow. He introduces himself as Clint and when Bucky gives his name in return, his eyes widen in surprise.

“You have a guitar. Are you that singer Bucky? Or just some other Bucky who looks like him?” Bucky laughs and admits that he is exactly who Clint thinks he is. “That’s so cool though. Like, small world. I’m going to your town to surprise this really amazing girl I met when I was here in the spring. We’ve been texting, but she wants to stay and I work in the circus. But circus life is dying, which blows, but that means I could take the year to figure out how to make a living in a regular town. I actually didn’t know who you are, but she and I follow each other on stuff and she posted a photo of you and the dude from your song.”

Bucky raises a brow. “Me and Steve?”

Clint nods. “Yeah, I guess there was some Tumblr or Twitter bullshit about you writing a song about a dude, which is just total horse shit dude. You write about your man.” Bucky’s cheeks pink, but he smiles back. They’re taking off and Clint has an internet pass, so as soon as they get up to altitude, he brings up the threads. “Yeah, see, people were being shit. So a bunch of people from your town started spamming the threads with different cute pics of you that they’d already posted. There’s a whole thread about it. Someone made a submission blog just about you two.”

He pulls up the blog in question. Which is called Brookville’s Bucky and Steve. Because that’s exactly what they are. The rules in the sidebar are that only photos already posted publicly to other social media accounts are allowed. Dredging up old stuff from high school is encouraged, but only if Bucky and Steve have already had the chance to ask for it to be taken down. Thus, it’s still up on other social media.

The Twitter responses are great. He sees pictures he doesn’t remember being taken, but are incredible. One of him sleeping on Steve’s chest at the swimming hole one summer after high school. One of them with their friends at a football game. And the best one of all, one he doesn’t remember ever seeing. It’s definitely senior prom. They’d been together two and a half years. Shot in profile, Steve has one arm around Bucky’s waist, resting just at the small of his back, the other cradling the far side of his head. Both of Bucky’s hands are on Steve’s shoulders. The jackets to their matching suits are back at the table, and they’re dancing to something slow. But there’s no mistaking the intense look of love in their gaze.

Bucky remembers this moment, but he had no idea someone caught it on film. Then he sees the handle.

“Of course Nat would take this,” he mutters.

“Nat’s who I’m going to see!” Clint says. “I have Twitter notifications on for her. That’s how I found all this bullshit. She posted this and I was like, who are these two dudes? Turns out, pretty cool dudes who deserve a break.”

Bucky chuckles. “Thanks man. Has this all happened in like the last day?”

“I guess some people got started on their bullshit right after your performance aired on the east coast.”

Bucky nods. “Right, I was on the phone with the airline changing my flight by that point,” he says with more humor than it probably deserves.

They chat for the rest of the flight and Bucky finds out about Clint’s intention to teach gymnastics and acrobatics as an addition to the current dance and yoga offerings in town. There are a lot of kids who go to the next town for gymnastics, so he’ll probably get a good turn out. And he says he wants to do some archery lessons. He’s odd and chipper and thinks Nat hung the moon, so he’ll do well in town, Bucky thinks.

He doesn’t have a lift from the airport, but Bucky doesn’t know if he does either, so he can’t really offer. Instead he gives Clint directions to the shuttle bus that will take him to a few other major towns before Brookville, but which will drop him off just off Main Street and near Nat’s studio. One leaves just short of fifteen minutes after they land, so Clint will have to run, but he didn’t check any bags. Bucky wouldn’t be able to make that one, even if he doesn’t have a ride home, because he doubts he’ll be able to drag his bags all the way to the stop by then.

When they land, he lets Clint get off first so he can make his shuttle, then takes his bag and guitar and slowly makes his way out. He doesn’t have any texts from his family, so he’s probably going to need to wait for the next shuttle or get a rental car. He’s mulling it over as he walks out toward baggage claim.

Where Steve is standing, tall and broad in a flannel shirt and his usual coat.

“Stevie!!” Bucky cries as he runs across the arrivals terminal, jumping into Steve’s arms. His bag is slipping and his guitar is still in his hand and keeps whacking Steve in the back. But his heart is pounding and so warm.

Steve is laughing or crying or both. Bucky can’t see him, but his chest is shaking against Bucky’s own. And his arms are holding Bucky up off the floor, like they’ll never let him fall. Somewhere around them, people are whistling and clapping. He has no idea if any of them know them, or if they’re just happy to see a happy reunion.

“Babe, your guitar keeps hitting me in the head,” Steve laughs. “Put it down before you give me a concussion and have to drive the truck.”

Bucky giggles and slides out of Steve’s hold to set his bag and guitar case on the floor. He really hates driving the truck, much as he likes being driven around in it. He pushes back up into Steve’s arms and kisses his smiling mouth.

“You’re here to get me?”

“Becca didn’t know what you texted her. And then she thought it was for Christmas,” Steve says. “But I saw you last night. I just knew.”

Bucky grins wider. “You’ve always known me.” He pecks Steve on the lips again. “C’mon, I have bags.”

Steve picks up Bucky’s duffle and takes his free hand. Once both giant bags are on the floor in front of them, Steve looks from the bags to Bucky.

“You’re moving back?”

“Yeah, fuck LA.” He pushes into Steve’s space. “Everyone I love is here. Seeing them, being with you forever, that’s way more important than a stupid music career.”

Steve drags Bucky into a kiss just a shade too indecent for the airport and lets him go just before Bucky gets too breathless and pink. Bucky gets the duffle strapped across his chest while Steve attaches his stupidly large and heavy bags together. Then Bucky picks up his guitar in one hand and Steve takes the other to lead him out to the parking lot. Bucky puts his bag and guitar in the backseat while Steve hefts the suitcases into the bed.

When Steve gets into the cab, Bucky’s in the middle seat where he belongs.

“I love you,” Bucky says. Steve kisses him, murmuring his reply right into Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky sings along to every single Christmas song the radio plays on the hour drive home, including his own. Until Steve pulls off the road just a few minutes outside of town. It’s not their usual makeout spot, and there’s no real reason for them to be stopping, but Bucky scoots over when Steve nudges him.

“You’re planning to stay forever?” Steve asks again.

Bucky hates that he made the man he loves most in the world so uncertain, but he’s committed to fixing it.

“I’m not leaving you for more than a night,” Bucky says. “I don’t know if I’m quitting forever yet. If my agent can come up with a way for me to work from here and not spend more than a night away from home now and then, I might do it. But, I want a life with you. Our life that we were supposed to have. So we can make that decision together.”

A smile stretches across Steve’s face. “I have something for you, then.” He opens the never-used ashtray and pulls out a small box. “I bought it when we were nineteen and chickened out. Then you were talking about LA, so I just never said anything.” Bucky’s brows draw together. “But you want the same thing we always talked about. So, I think maybe this is the right time.” He opens the small black box and takes the contents in one hand before holding it up between two fingers. “Will you marry me, Buck? Finally?”

Bucky stares at him, at the ring he’s apparently had for the last seven years and not gotten rid of even after Bucky broke his heart.

“Yes,” Bucky breathes. “Yes, I’ll marry you! Stevie!” he cries and launches himself at Steve, kissing him and holding onto his shoulders. “I’m so sorry I’ve been so stupid.” He kisses Steve again. “This is the only thing that was ever worth anything and I gave it up for years.”

Steve holds Bucky close, kisses him once, twice before pulling back. “I’ve always forgiven you, Buck. I love you and we belong together. Now we can make it official.” He takes Bucky’s left hand and slips the ring onto it. It’s a perfect fit, even all these years later.

“This is beautiful, Stevie,” Bucky says as he looks more closely at it. The body of the ring is black, but the center is inlaid with something copper in color.

“It’s a really light black metal. The inlay is one of your old guitar strings set into the ring with epoxy. I thought it would mean more to us than a stone.”

Bucky’s eyes fill with tears. “I can’t believe I ever left. I’m such an idiot,” he says, pushing back into Steve’s arms. “No one could pick a better ring for me. My music brought us together twice now. Even if it was the thing I thought separated us.”

Steve kisses his temple. “Your music is how I figured out how you felt, even before you wrote a song to tell me so. It’s part of our relationship.”

“I’ll have to get you something to match,” Bucky says. “But this’ll do for now.”

They sit for a few minutes more, Bucky’s head on Steve’s chest so he can hear his heartbeat, and both of them tracing the edges of Bucky’s engagement ring. He can’t believe he’s engaged before his sister anyway, just like he thought he’d be when he was younger.

“Let’s go home, Stevie.”

* * *

When the truck pulls up outside the Barnes house, all the windows shine with light. They get Bucky’s bags up to the porch before Steve opens the door.

Winnie and Sarah are on the loveseat next to George in the armchair. Judy’s on the floor, and Beth, Michael, and Becca are on the couch behind her. The silence is tense as they wait to see what happened in Albany. Steve reaches behind him and sets one of Bucky’s huge suitcases on the floor in the entryway. Then the other. Bucky passes him the duffle bag from out of sight, catching onto the plan without a word.

The nervous excitement ratchets up with each successive bag. When he sets the guitar case down, a wordless sound of joy escapes someone. Bucky’s left hand, ring glinting lowly in the light, passes into Steve’s waiting hand next. He grips it in his own and pulls until Bucky is tucked right against him.

Everyone is making noise, jumping up and Steve’s laughing in sheer relief as he half carries Bucky further into the room and nudges the front door shut with his foot. He kisses Bucky’s temple before passing him off to Winnie.

Becca elbows Steve while their mothers attempt to squeeze the life out of Bucky. “You were right.”

“I know him better than anyone,” Steve says, not even bragging. “I’m just glad he’s home for good.”

“That what he said?” Becca asks.

Steve smirks.

Bucky’s getting hugs from all sides, questions about how long he’s staying. And he looks over his shoulder at Steve when he says forever. It takes them another two minutes to notice the ring.

“Is that a fucking ring?!” Judy gasps.

Sarah sighs in a long-suffering way that both boys are very, very familiar with.

Steve wraps around Bucky from behind to join and support him in this conversation. He’s the one who asked after all. He explains to the family, tracing the ring with his thumb all the while, that he bought the ring before Bucky left and couldn’t bring himself to sell it because it was so personal. It just mocked him from the back of his closet for the last five years. And when he realized Bucky might be coming home for real, he stopped to get it before driving to the airport.

“Got a lot of faith in Buck there, Steve,” Beth says.

“Just know him well enough. He said he was coming home.” He kisses Bucky’s cheek again.

“So, when are we having the wedding?” Winnie asks.

“On our anniversary,” Bucky says. “That was what we talked about before.” He glances over his shoulder at Steve. “I don’t wanna have a different anniversary.” Steve just smiles in complete agreement.

A knock on the door interrupts the rest of the conversation.

Becca goes to answer it and a few of their neighbors are standing on the front steps.

“We heard a bunch of excited shouting,” Carol says, Maria just behind her shoulder and Doc Banner two steps below. “Is something going on?”

“Bucky’s home,” Becca says with a grin. “To stay.” Their neighbors cheer and Becca invites them in to see him. When she goes to close the door, she sees Natasha coming up the walk with an unfamiliar blond guy.

“Becca!” she calls. “Clint says Bucky’s home to stay.”

“Yeah, come in. Hi, I’m Becca Barnes,” she introduces herself.

“Clint Barton, new Brookvillian. I sat next to Bucky on the plane.” He grins brightly as Nat pulls him inside by the hand.

The door isn’t closed for five minutes when someone knocks again and Becca goes to let in whoever else is suddenly ready to welcome her brother home. It’s Sam and Riley, Steve and Bucky’s friends from school.

“Please tell me we heard Nat right and Bucky’s home for good,” Riley says, pulling on Sam’s hand.

They started dating after graduation, but during those few years before Bucky left, Riley and Sam had been the only other out gay couple besides her brother and Steve that Becca knew. She grins and lets them in, nodding.

“Really?” Sam asks, grin widening as he looks across the room to see Bucky laughing and greeting people, still held securely in Steve’s arms.

“Thank the Lord,” Riley says.

Bucky’s head spins to see him and a stupidly bright smile breaks out. “Get over here, dumbasses,” he calls. “We beat you to it again.” He wiggles his left hand in the light once Sam and Riley are close enough.

“No way!” Riley gasps, grabbing Bucky’s hand along with Nat to look at the ring. “What’s set into it?”

“One of my old guitar strings Steve kept,” Bucky says smugly.

Steve looks at least as smug. They used to joke about beating Riley and Sam to the relationship milestone, despite agreeing that both couples counted as ‘highschool sweethearts’. Now they're still winning, even though he and Bucky have been apart.

“Jeez,” Sam scoffs. “You’re back together for less than a day before you propose, Rogers. You’re a mess.”

“Less than an hour,” Bucky says. “But he’s my mess.”

“Of the two of us, _you_ are the only one who had to fly across the country and sing on TV before you realized what you wanted. I think you’re the mess, babe,” Steve says.

Bucky shrugs. “Whatever, you’re still marrying me.” Nat whaps the side of his head for being an idiot. He glares at her, but once he turns back Steve kisses him again.

“Stop being gross,” Judy complains.

“Getting married, Judes,” Steve says like the troll he really is. “Married people are gross.” She snorts, but doesn’t complain further. This is all stroking Steve’s stupid exhibitionist streak and Bucky knows it. Having everyone fawning over their romance and happy to have them kissing in the middle of a crowd of people. It’s ideal for him to get to show off how in love they are.

As neighbors leave, others come in, surprised to find that the rumor mill has actually undersold the excitement rather than oversold it. Bucky’s sure the whole town will know he’s back by morning and that they’re getting married by tomorrow night.

They sit on the loveseat beside Ma Sarah, Bucky squarely in Steve’s lap, while their friends relax on the floor with Bucky’s sisters. George brings in chairs from the dining room at some point and Winnie makes coffee and tea for everyone. The front door is basically a revolving one, and everyone who comes inside is greeted first by the stack of Bucky’s luggage, proving he’s really home. Before they see Bucky happily sitting on Steve like he’s supposed to be.

It feels like half the town comes in, but it’s mostly their immediate neighbors, or neighbors from the Rogers’ street who heard Steve and Bucky were back together. There will be bridges to mend and hurts to heal in time, Bucky knows. His bad choices and poor coping strategies hurt the people he loves. But for today, everyone is happy to have the chance to mend bridges in the first place.

Later, Darcy, who owns the bookstore comes in with Val and Thor from the local gym, and Thor’s girlfriend Jane, who teaches at the high school now. Steve and Darcy have become closer friends since he started managing the café full time and she’s delighted for them. The twins come by after the school football game is over. Peter, MJ, and Ned drop by not long after. They all adore Steve for being a cool boss at the café and letting them study there with coffee discounts when they’re not on shift.

None of them except Peter know Bucky all that well, but Steve’s joy is more than enough. And they can all see that Sarah dotes on Bucky just as bad as she dotes on Steve, so that convinces them. It’s getting late, so they don’t stay long. But they make Bucky promise to come tell them the whole story at the café soon, that way Steve can’t leave out the embarrassing parts.

At eleven, Steve and Bucky agree they should let their parents get some rest. So Beth makes a bright sign for the front door:

**BUCKY IS HOME**

**BACK WITH STEVE**

**BOTHER THEM LATER**

Sarah sets a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “It’s late. Why don’t I stay here for the night and you boys can go back to our house and have some privacy?”

“You can have my room, Ma Sarah. I’m sure it’s cleaner than Bucky’s and Michael and I can make it home just fine,” Becca says.

“Thank you, love,” Sarah replies.

Bucky and Steve exchange a look. “Okay,” Bucky says. “But we’ll put my suitcases somewhere out of your way before we go.”

Steve and Michael each carry one of the big suitcases up to Bucky’s room while Bucky says goodnight to his family and the few remaining friends.

“I expect details, Bucko,” Riley says.

“I do not want them,” Sam says, laughing. “But you tell Steve I expect to be in the wedding.”

“Duh,” Steve says from the stairs.

Nat flicks Bucky’s ear, but gives him a tight hug. Clint fist bumps both him and Steve before telling him ‘small world’ again and following Nat like a puppy.

“You sat next to Nat’s circus clown boyfriend on the plane?” Steve asks when they finally have a moment of quiet.

“I think he’s technically a circus acrobat. But yes. Nice dude. Apparently some shitheads were being homophobic on Twitter—”

“What else is new,” Steve deadpans.

“Homophobic about us,” Bucky explains. “And our high school friends started posting old pictures of us from social media to shut them down. They’re really cute. Anyway, Nat posted one and Clint recognized me from that when I sat down next to him.”

Steve snorts. “That’s really random seeing as you were literally on TV last night.” Bucky shrugs. “Any other media I should know about, as your fiance?”

“Radio interview this morning. I may have mentioned that if you’ll still have me, I’m hoping to write happier songs.”

Steve hums consideringly. “Yeah, I guess I’ll still have you.” He smacks a kiss on Bucky’s forehead and reaches down to pinch his side. “Let’s go home.”

They take Bucky’s duffle and guitar out to the truck so they can drive the few minutes over to the Rogers house.

“You know, we should get our own place,” Bucky says.

“There’s an apartment above the café,” Steve says. “The tenants are moving out next month. Two bedrooms and an office, or in-home studio. It’s cute. Easy to get to work.”

Bucky watches Steve in the streetlights as he drives, remembering the silly parallel world he imagined on Black Friday while they were driving.

“Can we get a cat?”

Steve’s hand on his thigh squeezes lightly as he grins. “As long as we can get a dog too.”

  
  


* * *

_Epilogue Part 1_

_March 45th, 2020_

Bucky adjusts the camera and presses start. He grins into the screen and waves a little, sitting back so most of his body and guitar are visible. He’s in his little studio that he and Steve put together in the smallest bedroom of their apartment over the café.

“So, when I told my agent in December that I’d keep working if I could do it from here and not have to tour, this really isn’t what I had in mind,” Bucky says, laughing at his own black humor. “But hey, if we can’t go see shows, I’ll bring the show to you. If you’re on my Instagram, hopefully you know I’m Bucky Barnes. The guy who sings ‘tis the damn season.” He flashes a grin at the camera. “I’ve been collecting requests on Twitter the last two weeks for this little concert, and it’s a good set list. You guys have good taste.”

He glances down at some of the comments rolling in. “Where am I? I’m home in Brookville with my fiancé. He’s downstairs with the one staff member he can have with him in the kitchen and they’re finishing up pastries for the day. We’re take out and delivery only. One of our former baristas is now our dedicated delivery cyclist. It’s a small town and he doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Bucky says with a shrug.

“I say we, but really his Ma owns the café and Steve manages it. I’m a freeloader that sometimes makes the coffee. Steve and I are only allowed to work the counter at the same time because we’re in the same household. Anyway, we have an apartment together now, just moved in at the end of January. And this tiny bedroom was the last tenant’s office, but now it’s my studio.”

He reads a few more comments, says hi to a few people. Says hi to a few locals who let him know that half the town is watching him, which makes him laugh.

“Will you get to meet Steve? Yeah, if he finishes up at the café within half an hour. He’ll wash up and come bring me coffee.”

Bucky takes a moment to spotlight a few charities that are the impetus behind his planned series of Instagram Live concerts. Then he plays a few of his older songs that were requested by long-standing fans, and a few by his friends who he hasn’t seen in weeks but who are watching.

“Oh, wedding question,” he says after a moment, reading it quickly. “Yeah, we postponed our wedding,” Bucky says. “It was going to be September 18th, but that seems optimistic. So we’ve preemptively moved it back exactly a year. Same date. That’s been our anniversary for ten and a half years, so we ain’t changing it now. Though, we’ve talked about just signing the papers outside with our families this year and having the big ceremony next year. We just wanna be married.”

He looks down at the comments and chuckles. “Speaking of, Riley’s badgering me to play ‘tis the damn season. Fine, fine Ri.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.” Bucky plays two notes before breaking into giggles at his own terrible joke. When he calms down, he starts playing his hit single.

The comments explode around the bridge and he doesn’t realize until he’s finished that it’s because Steve’s standing in the doorway watching him. He turns his head and beckons his fiancé into the room. Steve sits down on the seat behind him, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist and resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Sounded nice, babe,” he says.

More comments flow in along the lines of ‘he really does call you babe!’

“Thanks sweetheart. Wanna stay?” Steve nods and kisses him on the cheek, settling in to listen to Bucky play. He goes into Leaving on a Jet Plane next.

“ _Every song I sing, I sing for you_ ,” Bucky croons. “ _When I come back, I’ll wear your wedding ring_.” Steve’s contented smile turns very, very smug. But he joins in with the next chorus. When the last chord fades out, Steve catches Bucky’s lips in a kiss.

“Love you,” Steve murmurs.

“Love you too, hun,” Bucky says. “But you have to behave. We’re live.” Steve shrugs. “You wanna give your ‘order from local businesses’ spiel?”

Steve hums, but does sit up slightly to encourage people to patronize local businesses with distanced take out orders where that’s safe, and to order from local restaurants and shops on delivery services whenever possible.

“And if you’re low risk, help out your higher risk neighbors, friends, and family by picking things up for them, bringing them food. And call them to check in. My Ma had a heart attack a year ago and since I do public facing work and live with Buck, neither of us can see her in case we transmit something. But our families are helping each other out. One of Bucky’s sisters is a nurse, so she and her boyfriend only stay at his place to keep our parents from being exposed. His youngest sister helps out my Ma because she can do classes online. Do whatever you can do to help the vulnerable people in your community. It means more than you can imagine.”

Bucky turns his face to nose at Steve’s cheek. “Thank you, sweetheart.” Steve lays his head against Bucky’s. “What do you want to hear?”

“Play the new one you finished the other day. I like that one,” Steve says.

“Anything for you, Stevie.”

* * *

_Epilogue Part 2_

_September 18, 2020 (or March 202nd by some reckonings)_

“We’re married!” Bucky cheers as the camera goes live. He sits with his back to Steve’s chest in his studio. They no longer wear the suits from their small wedding ceremony, having changed into more comfortable t-shirts and jeans. Steve chuckles against his ear, hugging Bucky’s waist tightly and grinning at the camera.

“I love you Mr. Barnes-Rogers,” Steve says, kissing Bucky on the cheek.

Hearts explode and the comments fly past.

Bucky laughs and leans forward to read some of them. “We didn’t have a big ceremony or anything. Just our immediate families, everyone masked and more than six feet apart and it was outside,” he says. “My sister’s a nurse, so trust me, we take public health measures very seriously in this household.”

“I mean, except Alpine,” Steve says. “She likes to put her butt on the kitchen counters while I’m cooking.”

“Our cat hates us,” Bucky says happily. “But she hates us less than everyone else, so that makes us special.” Steve rolls his eyes, but he can’t stop smiling. “Stevie, the people want to know why we didn’t just wait until next year like we said we would,” Bucky says, wheedling to get Steve to answer.

“We’re gonna have the reception and big ceremony then,” Steve says. They’ve already agreed on that. “But we just didn’t want to spend another day, another anniversary not married. So we arranged for a socially distanced justice of the peace to come down and have us say I do and give our vows and pronounce us married, then we signed the papers and now we’re husbands.”

“Mmmm, husbands, sounds so nice,” Bucky hums.

“Dork.”

“Punk.”

“Anyway, half the town managed to come anyway by just watching out the windows, or livestreaming it out their windows so people who don’t live near City Hall could watch.”

“We’re very popular,” Bucky says. “Because Steve is the caffeine dealer, not because of me.”

He looks down to read more comments.

“Oh, what are our rings made of?” Bucky reads. “They’re both black zirconium. Steve bought mine like eight years ago.”

Steve blushes and nods against Bucky’s shoulder. “We were nineteen and gay marriage had been allowed in the state for a year and I am a massive sap,” he says.

“Tell them what’s inlaid in my ring, hun.”

“So, when we were in high school, Bucky wrote a song to confess his feelings for me.” There’s a flurry of hearts. “Yeah, he’s cute.” Steve’s smile is soft and he kisses Bucky on the cheek. “Anyway, we started dating about two minutes after he finished playing it for me. And when he changed his strings, I asked if I could keep them since they were the strings he used to tell me he loved me.”

Bucky swipes at a tear with his thumb and nestles his head against Steve's.

“I had the ring custom made. The A string from that set is inset into the band with epoxy.”

The hearts and comments are flowing faster than Bucky has seen before. He huffs a little wet laugh.

“Always making me cry,” Bucky huffs.

“You’re a crier, babe. This isn’t even the first time you’ve cried today.”

“We got married today! Of course I cried! It was perfect and beautiful and I love you.” He leans over to kiss Steve, pulling away before it can deepen. “Right, so Steve proposed like an hour after I got back to New York and told him I was staying. So, I had to find a ring for him. I didn’t want an extra wedding band, because that would be too bulky to fret with and I love my ring so, so much. So we decided that we’d just get engagement rings that meant something special and those would be our wedding bands too. But I had to find one that was perfect.”

Steve chuckles, playing with their fingers on Bucky’s waist.

“I wanted it to match visually, so even though they’re different it’s clear they’re a set. And I was talking to Ma Sarah about it over Christmas. Her wedding ring is an Irish Claddagh, an heirloom from her family, since she’s from Ireland. And I’ve always loved it. I was probably barely as tall as her waist when I asked what made it different from a regular ring.” Steve’s smiling into his shoulder again. “It’s three parts. The sort of holy trinity of love, if you will. The hands for friendship, and Steve and I have been best friends since we were old enough to have a best friend. The crown is for loyalty, and well, we were apart for five years and neither of us dated anyone else. And the heart is for love, which we obviously have a lot of.”

Bucky picks up Steve’s left hand and brings their rings up toward the camera.

“The heart pointing out, when it’s not on this finger, means your heart is free. Pointing in means it’s closed. On this finger, pointing out means engaged and pointing in means married. I found the same company that did my ring and they have this Claddagh relief engraving with a colored background. So I got a copper color that would match the guitar string in mine.”

Steve brings their hands to his lips and kisses over their rings. “They represent us and our relationship perfectly.”

“Because we’re idiots, but we’re also really sappy,” Bucky says.

He grins up at Steve and then back at the camera.

“Should we play something? We’re just happy and we wanted to share, but my guitar’s right here,” Bucky says. The general consensus of the comments is yes, so Bucky grabs his guitar and gives it a quick tune. “What do you wanna hear, Stevie?”

“Play our song for us, the one that’s gonna be our first dance.”

Bucky smiles. “Ma Sarah taught us to waltz to this song when we were like ten,” he says. “And Steve requested it from the DJ at our junior and senior proms just so we could dance to it. And I think you’ll agree it’s very us.”

Steve kisses Bucky’s jaw, smiling and waiting for him to start. He strums the intro, humming until he’s happy with the sound.

“ _Looks like we made it_ ,” he sings. “ _Look how far we’ve come, my baby._ ” Steve sways them ever so gently, as if they’re really dancing. “ _We mighta took the long way, but we knew we’d get there someday_ …”

Bucky's ring, black zirconium with a brass wound guitar string embedded, as described. Source: Revolution Jewelry Designs

Steve's ring, black zirconium with a full band Irish Claddagh relief design, background filled with copper brown Source: Revolution Jewelry Designs (customizer tool)

* * *

_Epilogue Part 3_

_November 2023_

_Portrait of a Hometown Star_

By Christine Everheart

I was delighted by the invitation to travel up to Brookville, New York, about an hour south of Albany, to interview singer-songwriter Bucky Barnes. The somewhat reclusive artist tours only in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with very occasional one night shows in other cities. He remains a staple at folk festivals in the area, at which he is known to camp out for the festival weekend with his husband, and sometimes their friends. This location requirement famously came about right after the release of his first hit single “‘tis the damn season” in December 2019, when he decided to return to his hometown of Brookville and pursue a relationship with his highschool sweetheart, whom he had left for a music career in Los Angeles. The single makes overt references to the long weekend spent together that led to his change of heart.

Barnes has remained a steady, though not chart-topping, force in folk and soft rock music over the last three years. His dedicated fanbase isn't huge, but he still enjoys regular radio play both in and out of the Christmas season. Though he prefers to put out short EPs and singles, he has finally released his first full length album. The track list boasts no repeated songs from previous releases and it is already generating buzz. I was able to sit down with Barnes in Cuppa Joe, the café in downtown Brookville run by Mr. Barnes’s husband.

When I sit down, Barnes already has a large mug of coffee on a saucer in front of him, and a few china plates with a selection of treats.

“Steve’s trying out new things, so he made us some samples,” Barnes says as I get settled. “Help yourself. Can I grab you a coffee?”

I ask for an Americano and am surprised when he simply walks behind the counter to make it himself. There is a young man at the register, but it’s not a busy time on a weekday and there are few others in the café. None of them pay Barnes any mind, even as he starts humming one of his own songs while he brews my drink. I gather in this town he is more famous for being Bucky, the slightly wayward partner of Steve Rogers who runs the café, than he is for being an acclaimed artist.

The Americano he brings me is excellent and I wonder how often he worked shifts here as a teenager to perfect it. Because he confirms that he did work here as a teenager, often with his then boyfriend Steve, to help out the woman he calls ‘Ma Sarah’, his mother-in-law.

“You’re close with her?” I ask.

“She’s been my second mom pretty much my whole life. All my sisters call her Ma Sarah too. That’s just how we are. She’s one of the toughest people I know too. No one else could’ve raised my stubborn husband as a single parent.”

I ask about the shop briefly, if it’s always been owned by his husband’s family, and where the name comes from.

“From Sarah and Joseph. Ma Sarah’s Irish and loves her tea. So that’s why it’s spelled Cuppa. And Steve’s dad was Joseph, so the Joe is a play on his name too,” Barnes says with a smile. “I never knew him. He died when we were only one, but I know he was a great guy.”

“What made you decide to leave home for a career in music?” I ask. As far as I know, he’s never said.

Barnes shrugs. “I love music. It’s just a part of me. And I wanted to do something more than conducting a church choir or teaching guitar lessons. Those are good, important jobs, but they’re just not me. I thought that meant I had to go to the big city, where there were lots of record labels, and find my way. And I burned a lot of bridges — and singed the others — when I left. I honestly expected Steve to never forgive me. But, he knew better than me why I left and I knew at least as well as he did why he stayed.”

“But you came back,” I say, “just after your first big hit.”

“I was already thinking about leaving,” he says. “I wasn’t happy in LA and everyone here seemed to know it. They kept trying to get me to understand that I was allowed to change my mind. That sure there are consequences to backing out and going home, but you have to weigh which ones you’re willing to live with. I could live with being out of sorts while trying to succeed, but I can’t live without Steve. So, in that sense, it was easy. I would probably have given it up if my agent hadn’t convinced the label to give me a shot. She sold them on, well, the truth. I’d been writing miserable, mopey shit in LA. I go home for one weekend with the love of my life and come back with a hit.”

“And you’ve continued to make songs that people enjoy. Why mostly singles and EPs?” I ask.

“I like the immediacy of it. I can record for a few days in Albany and come home every night, kiss my husband, feed the cat, get sat on by the dog. It’s exactly what I want my life to be like.”

“What inspired you to switch to making an album?”

“A combination of the label wanting a full album and me having a bunch of unrecorded songs that Steve kept asking me to sing for him over and over.” He laughs. “It’s kind of silly, but if he asks me to sing the same song three days in a row when I’ve got other new ones, I know it’s a good one. He loves me, but not enough to put me on repeat if he doesn’t love it.”

A tall blond man sidles up behind him and leans down onto Barnes’s shoulders. “It’s also self-serving. I love hearing him sing about how much he loves me and how happy I make him. Strokes my ego.”

Barnes rolls his eyes fondly before muttering something that sounds an awful lot like ‘strokes other things too’. Considering the man — who can only be Steve Rogers — pinches his side and laughs, that’s probably exactly what he said. They shift from giggling and play fighting and pretending to be irritated by each other to soft nuzzles and kisses on the cheek in seconds. It’s almost like whiplash. Until you stop to remember that these two men who have been in love most of their lives, grew up playing in the sandbox together and probably chasing each other and half their peers in town with worms or grubs or finger guns. They have not lost the playfulness of their childhood games or adolescent romance. It seems they have only added a more mature element to the mix.

I ask briefly about their marriage while Rogers is with us.

The couple officially tied the knot in September 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, by signing the paperwork with their justice of the peace and immediate family at a masked safe distance in the City Hall Park, across the street from the café.

“It felt like half the town was there, though,” Barnes says. “There’s a lot of houses and shops and apartments that face the park. People were watching through open windows and cheering for us. We were the only openly gay couple in our school as teenagers, though we know there were a few couples in town who just weren’t open. And we had our ups and downs, but it’s a small town and everyone here wants to see us happy. So people drove by in their cars, cracking the windows so we could hear them blasting celebration music or YMCA or one of my songs. And people who had a good view streamed it on Facebook or Instagram for their friends in town who live further out. It was kind of cool, even though it was also a really scary time.”

“Why did you choose not to postpone it?” I ask.

“We did postpone all the real festivities,” Steve says. “That stuff was spontaneous, or at least not planned by us. We just planned to sign the marriage license, say our vows and I do’s and kiss. Everyone stayed far away from us and each other and just watched. But we spent five years apart. We didn’t want to spend even another day not being married.”

They talk about the wedding they had the following year, which they were still cautious about. It was held on a private piece of woodland just outside of town.

“The wedding was like a five minute walk around the treeline from this spot where we’d always park and make out when we were teenagers,” Barnes says. “So we had Steve’s truck parked over there and took some wedding photos in it and on it in our little lover’s lane.”

“Those are my favorites,” Rogers says.

“Did you ever consider changing your name?” I ask Barnes.

He chuckles. “Well, a lot of people know Bucky is just my nickname. The one I’ve been going by since kindergarten, it _is_ my name by now. But Barnes is a stage name now too. Legally, we’re both Barnes-Rogers.”

“We want our kids to have the same name as us,” Rogers says. Barnes agrees, smiling softly. I ask how they are hoping to make a family.

“One of my sisters has already volunteered as a surrogate. She’s also gay, so our agreement is that she’ll provide the egg and carry our child so we can have a baby that’s biologically both me and Steve’s. And I’ll be a donor for her future wife so they can also have a baby that’s biologically both of theirs. She doesn’t have a serious girlfriend right now, but I know she wants to settle down and have a family too. So I’m happy to do that for her. She’s definitely doing more work.” Rogers snorts a laugh into his husband’s hair, but nods.

There’s no baby on the way right now, but it’s a sooner rather than later. They have a second bedroom, and they already know which parent will be which.

“I’ll be Papa,” Barnes says, “and Steve will be Daddy. And our poor child is going to be fussed over all day and night. Steve only fusses over certain people. Namely me and Ma Sarah. And I’m a mother hen. So our kid is gonna get it from all sides.”

“They’ll have great grandmas though,” Rogers says. “And their aunties will definitely teach them how to undermine us.”

Barnes laughs. “That’s horrifying. Thank you for that terrible thought. Go back to your kitchen hovel, you pastry gremlin.”

“The toll for the road to the hovel is a kiss,” Rogers teases, tilting his head down for Barnes to reach.

“Better not be getting tolls from anyone else,” he teases back, all faux irritation and good-natured ill-humor. He kisses his husband and sends him off with a swat on the thigh. Only once the door is shut do I have his attention again.

We discuss the themes of the album and he’s very forthright about the meanings behind his songs.

“They’re all about Steve. Pretty sure the last song I wrote that wasn’t about him was literally about a sandwich, for English class, in the ninth grade. And if I remember correctly, Steve made the sandwich I wrote about.”

The album is split into quarters, with each having a unifying theme. Loss. Acceptance. Joy. And belonging. Barnes captures the feeling of a moment in most of these songs, or takes the listener on a journey through a short space of time. The inspiring moments span his entire life with his husband and a few touch upon big turning points, such as his decision to leave home and the day he came back, their relationship firsts, their wedding. He speaks of the moments more than the songs themselves.

“Honestly, I feel like I could’ve written a whole album about the day I came home for good. A lot happened that day. I gave an interview and didn’t mention I was leaving. I basically got on a plane with nothing more than an apparently cryptic text to my sister with my flight number.”

“Cryptic?” I ask.

He chuckles. “It was just the flight number, and she had no idea why I was sending it to her. She had to get Steve to figure out what I meant. And if she hadn’t, I would’ve taken the shuttle bus to town and had to drag everything home. Well, I probably would’ve dragged it here because it’s closer and Steve would’ve been here. But when I landed in Albany, my husband was waiting there for me. He proposed that same day, because he’s an all or nothing kind of guy.” He shakes his head fondly. “Then we sort of surprised my family and it was like out of a fifties sitcom. People in the neighborhood heard the excitement and came over. There were people in and out of the living room until late at night. Everyone was happy to see me, happy to see that Steve was never gonna let me out of his lap ever again, happy to hear that we were ‘finally’ getting married. It was a huge, crazy day, and one song alone could never do it justice.”

“Do you try to cover all of that in the song?” I ask.

“There’s no way I could even try. It covers our reunion at the airport and alludes to the surprise in store for my parents later. The first single, ‘String Around My Finger’ is about Steve’s proposal that day. It’s a sweet story. It was probably the first song for the album that Steve kept hitting the repeat button on. That’s when I know I have it right.”

“If you’re playing it for him at home, what’s the repeat button?”

“Him pouting, usually,” Barnes deadpans. “Skip track is poking me in the nose. And hearting a song is a kiss. Most of the time.”

Barnes is a personable, sincere artist. And his music resonates for anyone who's wanted to live in a moment like the ones he captures. The album and the themes it weaves through it are beautiful, but the truth is, his music is a mere reflection of the beautiful love between him and his husband. It fills any room they're in and every glance between them could hum like the chorus of a song.

It's the kind of love to make you believe in Hallmark Christmas movies.

Tis the damn season, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for your lovely responses!
> 
> Short notes:  
> The song Bucky sings as 'their song' in epilogue part 2 is 'Still The One' by Shania Twain, released in the late 90s and very fitting for this incarnation of Stucky
> 
> I found Bucky's ring on Revolution Jewelry Designs and designed a meaningful one for Steve that would visually match. I hope you enjoy the pictures and descriptions. And yes, you can have them embed your own guitar string in the ring
> 
> I decided to call their town Brookville because I wanted to use an actual small town and upstate New York worked well for the story, so I just invented something that uses the same first syllable and sounds similar
> 
> The sister who has agreed to surrogate for them in Epilogue 3 is Judy. She and Bucky have gotten really close since he's come back to mend that bridge


End file.
